Investigation of fullerenes for optoelectronic and photonic applications
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)
We present and discuss results outlining the use of fullerenes (mainly C{sub 60} and C{sub 70}) for optoelectronics and photonics. These applications are particularly compelling with the observation of such promising properties as photoluminescence, electroluminescence, large nonresonant optical nonlinearity, and superconductivity. We focus on nonlinear optical properties and their application to high-speed integrated all-optical switching. We present measurements on the dispersion and dynamics of the nonlinear optical coefficients in the near infrared and the figure-of-merit for photonic switching, indicating very favorable results. The first demonstration of photonic switching (all-optical logic gate, router, demultiplexor, etc.) using fullerene thin films as the nonlinear medium is presented. Our results show many advantages of fullerenes and fullerene devices, including the simplicity of processing into guided wave structures for nonlinear integrated optics, large nonlinear coefficients, effectively no latency, and potentially terabit/sec operation in the near infrared. Comparisons are made with the fiber optic switching approach.
- Research Organization:
- International Society for Optical Engineering, Washington, DC (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 552174
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9410155--Vol.2428
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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