| The ability to slow the speed of light on a chip has many applications. Normally, photons interact very weakly with transparent matter. Optical nonlinear effects require just the opposite. As a result, one must use high powered lasers that are large and expensive to observe nonlinear phenomena. However, as the velocity of light slows, there is increased light-matter interaction. Nonlinear effects are enhanced by the square of the slowing ratio, c/nug, where c is the speed of light in vacuum and nug is the group velocity. Slow light, therefore, could lead to chip-based nonlinear optics and improvements in optical switches, lasers, and wavelength converters. In addition, the ability to delay optical signals could lead to optical buffers and time-domain optical signal processing. This is attractive for preventing node contention in communication networks and data congestion in future computer systems.;One of the main drawbacks of slow light waveguides is the coinciding increase in optical losses. This dissertation investigates ways in which these losses can be abated. Specifically, a novel type of slow light waveguide is analyzed. The structure can reduce the group velocity of light by a factor of more than 30 while avoiding the out-of-plane scattering losses that have hindered other waveguides. Moreover, the waveguide presented here is constructed from a silicon-on-insulator substrate using CMOS-compatible processes. This opens the door to optoelectronic integration and a number of potential applications from improved biosensing to cheaper telecommunication routers. |
