Optical switching and logic gates with hybrid plasmonic–photonic crystal nanobeam cavities

We propose a hybrid resonance architecture in which a plasmonic element is coupled to a silicon-on-insulator photonic crystal nanobeam cavity operating at telecom wavelengths. It benefits from the combined characteristics of the photonic cavity and the plasmonic element, and exploits the unique properties of Fano resonances resulting from interactions between the continuum and the localized cavity states. As confirmed through 3D time-domain simulations, a strong cavity mode damping by the plasmonic element offers mechanisms of controlling a probe signal propagating in the nanobeam. It makes possible to create optical switching devices and logic gates relying on any optical nonlinear effect.