Abstract

The device uses a cristalline silicon film, grown an a sapphire substrate, as nonlinear material. The film is considered as an optical waveguide, in which the excitation light is coupled by a diffraction grating etched on the silicon surface. The grating is covered with a silver layer to get better field enhancement in the waveguide. Light is then incident through the sapphire substrate. For an incidence angle slightly different from the resonance value, the guided mode is weakly excited at low incident power. As power increases, refractive index variations yield better excitation of the mode and bistable operation is predicted.

© 1985 Optical Society of America