Tunable ultrafast nonlinear optofluidic coupler

Abstract

We present an optofluidic nonlinear coupler fabricated by selective filling of two strands of a photonic crystal fiber with the liquid CCl4 which exhibits a large ultrafast Kerr nonlinearity. We demonstrate power dependent switching in this novel optofluidic device. The large thermo-optical effect of liquids enables us to tune the behavior of the nonlinear coupler by changing the coupling strength with temperature. This opens the road towards flexible designs and realization of a new class of tunable ultrafast nonlinear couplers with switching times below 1 ps.