Optical Bistability in Nanosilicon with Record Low <i>Q</i>-Factor
Kentaro Nishida, P. K. Tseng, Yu‐Chieh Chen, Pang-Han Wu, Chi‐Yin Yang, Jhen‐Hong Yang, Wei-Ruei Chen, Olesiya Pashina, Mihail Petrov, Kuo‐Ping Chen, Shi‐Wei Chu
Abstract
-factor as low as ∼4 by utilizing photothermal and thermo-optical effects. We not only experimentally confirmed the steep intensity transition and the hysteresis in the scattering response from silicon nanocuboids but also established a physical model to numerically explain the underlying mechanism based on temperature-dependent competition between photothermal heating and heat dissipation. The transition between the bistable states offered particularly steep superlinearity of scattering intensity, reaching an effective nonlinearity order of ∼100th power over excitation intensity, leading to the potential of advanced optical switching devices and super-resolution microscopy.