All-Optical Switching In A Hybrid Mach-Zehnder Interferometer As A Result Of Cascaded 2Nd-Order Nonlinearity

We demonstrate, for the first time to our knowledge, all-optical switching with a contrast ratio of 7:1 based on the cascaded second-order nonlinearity. We performed the switching experiments in a nonlinear hybrid Mach-Zehnder interferometer, using a nonuniformly temperature-tuned lithium niobate channel waveguide in an operating regime of small fundamental depletion. (C) 1995 Optical Society of Americ