Slow light and dynamic buffer capability in two different photonic crystal waveguides

Abstract

In this paper, we investigated two designed structures for application in optical buffers with using photonic crystal technology. In the first structure, silicon slab is used with air holes in hexagonal lattice. However, in the second structure, we used Lithium Niobate slab with air holes. In the two cases, slow light criteria and optical buffering is demonstrated with bit length, delay time and buffer capacity equal to 7.5 μm, 166 ps, and 132 bits for silicon structure and 5.1 μm, 833 ps and 193 bits for Lithium Niobate structure, respectively. Moreover, we developed a dynamic buffer taking advantage of electro-optic effect. We show an external control of the buffer parameters for both structures. The simulations demonstrate that the bit length, the delay time and storage capacity change with the applied voltage and can reach as high as 9.1 μm, 116.6 ps and 125.4 bits for silicon structure and 6.9 μm, 833 ps and 193 bits for Lithium structure, respectively. These results prove that the suggested structures are promising for compact and high performance optical buffering application.