Optical bistability in Ag-Al₂O₃ one-dimensional photonic crystals

¹ Department of Physics, Case Western Reserve University - 10600 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44106-7079, USA
² Colegio de Ciencias e Ingeniería, Universidad San Francisco de Quito - Quito 17-1200-841, Ecuador
³ Department of Physics and CNR-NANOTEC, University of Calabria - 87036, Rende, Italy

^(a) sxk923@case.edu
^(b) giuseppe.strangi@case.edu

Received: 23 August 2015
Accepted: 8 October 2015

Abstract

Here, we demonstrate the nonlinear optical responses of Ag-Al₂O₃ one-dimensional photonic crystals (1D PCs). The linear transmission spectra of the proposed 1D PC show higher transmission at shorter wavelengths and lower transmission at longer wavelengths with “N” pairs of Ag-Al₂O₃ will support “N − 1” transmission peaks. By using 5 pairs of Ag-Al₂O₃, the optical bistability behavior of light transmission at low input intensity for the resonant modes is numerically demonstrated. Then, we performed a Z-scan experimental technique to show the enhanced nonlinear optical transmission of Ag-Al₂O₃ 1D PC. These results can pave the way for achieving all-optical control of light for potential applications such as all-optical switching, optical logic, optical computation, etc.