Events Calendar

Active CROW Slow-Light Structures: New Directions and Applications

Speaker: Jacob (Koby) Scheuer
School of EE, Tel-Aviv University, IsraelAbstract: In recent years, much attention has been focused on the behavior of light propagation in coupled resonator optical waveguides (CROWs). Substantial decrease of the group velocity can be attained in such chip-size structures, leading to numerous potential applications such as optical delay lines, optical filters wavelength converters and optical rotation sensors. However, the performance of CROW based systems is largely limited by the quality factor (Q) of the resonators composing it. Noticeable slowing of light necessitates small coupling between the micro-resonators, which, in turn, induces high optical losses, making the structure impractical for any real-life application. While the fabrication of high Q structures has been demonstrated, the complexity, high costs and low yields of such methods make them unsuitable for large – scale, commercial endeavors. In this talk, I will present new approach for overcoming the cavity loss problem based on incorporating optical gain in the cavities. New schemes for manipulating optical information by trapping and releasing optical pulses propagating in an array of coupled semiconductor lasers will be presented and analyzed. The incorporation of gain will be also shown to provide an efficient tool for dynamically controlling the propagation of light pulses, paving the road for realizable packet switching, routing and optical memory applications.Biography: Jacob (Koby) Scheuer received Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the Technion—Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel, in 2001. He was a Chief Designer with Lambda Crossing—an optical component startup specializing in microring resonators for two years. Then, he joined the Center for the Physics of Information and the Department of Applied Physics, the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, as a Research Associate. Currently, he is a Senior Lecturer with the School of Electrical Engineering, Tel-Aviv University, Israel. His research interests include nanophotonics, polymer optics, slow light, and secure communications.Host: Alan Willner, willner@usc.edu, EEB 538, x04664

Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 539

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos