Abstract

Photonic devices based on a high-$Q$ cavity are commonly constrained by narrow operation bandwidth, slow charging, and releasing speed. Here, we analytically and numerically demonstrate that this limitation can be broken via dynamically tuning the $Q$ factors of a single nanocavity and driving controllable photonic transitions between a low-$Q$ cavity mode and an ultrahigh-$Q$ mode by temporal refractive index modulations inside a multimode cavity. During this dynamic process, the bandwidth of signal light is also reversibly compressed. As a result, the fundamental link between the photon lifetime and the operation bandwidth is broken, and a delay-bandwidth product of $\sim 76$ is achieved, which is far greater than that of the usual optical resonator systems. This approach may pave the way for dynamic control of on-chip all-optical information processing.

© 2018 Optical Society of America

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