A Novel Microstructure of 2-Bit Optical Analog to Digital Converter Based on Kerr Effect Nonlinear Nanocavities in 2D Photonic Crystal

Abstract

In this paper, an all-optical analog-to-digital converter based on nonlinear with silicon materials is designed and simulated. The proposed structure consists of three nonlinear nanocavity that control the optical signal power intensity. The nonlinear material used is aluminum gallium arsenide (AlGaAs). Aluminum gallium arsenide (AlGaAs) with a linear refractive index of $n_0=1.4$ and a nonlinear refractive index of $n_2=1.5\times {10}^{-17}$ . Due to the small path length of the waveguides, the optical signals move a short distance and as a result, the power optical losses along the path are reduced and on the other hand, the speed of the structure is increased. The transmission percentage is between 90% and 100%. The overall dimensions of the structure are 324 μm2. The plane wave expansion (PWE) method is used to calculate the band structure. The two-dimensional finite difference time domain (2D-FDTD) method is used to calculate the transmission power spectrum and the simulation results.