We report the successful demonstration of all-optical switching using a subwavelength InP/InAsP nanowire integrated in a silicon photonic crystal at telecommunication wavelengths. In this work, we employed two different hybrid nanowire cavities based on an air-trench in photonic crystals. These hybrid cavities have the advantages of both material functionality of III–V material and the low propagation loss of the silicon waveguide. The nanowire induced line-defect photonic crystal cavity shows a Q-factor of 25000, higher than the hybrid systems we previously demonstrated. The switching time is 150 ps, which is among the fastest nanowire switches reported. We found that the switching time was clearly dependent on the Q-factor. From measurements performed while changing pump power, we have estimated the switching energy to be a few hundred femtojoules. This value is lower than that of a reference silicon photonic crystal cavity without a nanowire and an air trench under the same pumping condition. This indicates that the InP/InAsP nanowire integrated in a silicon photonic crystal has potential to contribute to reducing the switching energy.

中文翻译：

---

集成在Si光子晶体中的全光InAsP / InP纳米线开关

我们报告了在电信波长下使用集成在硅光子晶体中的亚波长InP / InAsP纳米线成功进行全光切换的演示。在这项工作中，我们基于光子晶体中的空气沟槽采用了两个不同的混合纳米线腔。这些混合腔具有III–V材料的材料功能性和硅波导的低传播损耗的优点。纳米线诱导的线缺陷光子晶体腔显示出25000的Q因子，高于我们先前展示的混合系统。开关时间为150 ps，是报道的最快的纳米线开关之一。我们发现切换时间显然取决于Q-因子。根据在改变泵浦功率时执行的测量，我们估计开关能量为数百飞焦耳。该值低于在相同泵浦条件下没有纳米线和空气沟槽的参考硅光子晶体腔的值。这表明，集成在硅光子晶体中的InP / InAsP纳米线具有降低开关能量的潜力。