Organic nonlinear Kerr materials in fabry-perot cavities for all optical switching

Abstract

Combining organic films with high Kerr-nonlinearities and highly optimized photonic nanostructures could lead to new fast switching elements. Fabry-Perot cavities are fabricated by incorporating an organic material between two dielectric mirrors. Using femto-second pump and probe measurements we characterize these hybrid 1-D photonic band gap structures for various organic materials. By varying the pump beam wavelength across the cavity resonance we are able to delineate between the various underlying nonlinear processes. Comparing these measurements with computations we are able to quantify both the refractive and absorptive nonlinear coefficients of various organic materials.