Optical short pulse switching characteristics of ring resonators

The nonlinear optical transmission of an optical ring resonator (ORR) operating in the soliton regime is investigated numerically. The transmission and the average compression factor of the switched pulses are analyzed. We present results of the study of the transmission characteristics of short optical pulses in an optical ring resonator. We show that the loss in the waveguide is leading to a decrease of the ORR transmission of short pulses. The use of a linear increase profile of the nonlinear index of refraction is leading to pulse compression or broadening, depending on the pump power. Operating the ORR at higher pump powers makes the compression factor to values around one. This is an indication that the switched pulse has the same time duration of the input pulse. For this configuration we can recover the ORR transmission, associated to the lossless configuration, and the switched pulse present the same time duration of the input pulse. The results are related to the recovery of the lossless optical characteristics of the ORR. The transmission characteristics and optical pulse shaping of the ORR will be of interest in future optical circuits applications.