Wideband and low dispersion slow light by chirped photonic crystal coupled waveguide

Previously, we discussed an optical delay device consisting of a directional coupler of two different photonic crystal (PC) waveguides. It generates wideband and low dispersion slow light. However, it is easily degraded by a large reflection loss for a small imperfection of the coupling condition. In this paper, we propose and theoretically discuss a PC coupled waveguide, which allows more robust slow light with lower loss. For this device, unique photonic bands with a zero or negative group velocity at the inflection point can be designed by the structural tuning. Finite difference time domain simulation demonstrates the stopping and/or back and forth motion of an ultrashort optical pulse in the device combined with the chirped structure. For a signal bandwidth of 40 GHz, the average group index of the slow light will be 450, which gives a 1 ns delay for a device length of 670 mu m. The theoretical total insertion loss at the device and input/output structures is as low as 0.11 dB. (c) 2005 Optical Society of America.