Abstract

Enhanced light-matter interactions in slow light (SL) waveguides present new opportunities for tunable delays, switching, and monitoring of optical pulses in compact photonic structures [1]. Dispersion engineered waveguides in photonic crystals (PhC) and plasmonic structures enable SL regimes with reduced group-velocity dispersion (GVD) away from photonic band edges. Light can be efficiently coupled into such SL waveguides [2], even in the extreme case approaching ”frozen light” regime at zero group velocity [3]. Material loss is also enhanced by SL as was shown for strongly band-edge SL with strong GVD [4, 5], and in this work we reveal unique effects of loss in dispersion-engineered SL waveguides with zero GVD.

© 2011 Optical Society of America