Ultrafast all-optical modulation using a photonic-crystal Fano structure with broken symmetry

We experimentally demonstrate ultrafast all-optical modulation using an ultracompact InP photonic-crystal Fanostructure. In contrast to symmetric configurations previously considered, the use of a structure with broken symmetryin combination with a well-engineered Fano resonance is shown to suppress patterning effects as well aslower the energy consumption. These properties enable the achievement of error-free 10 Gbit/s modulation withlow pump energy using realistic pseudorandom binary sequence patterns. At 20 Gbit/s, the bit error ratio remainswell below the limit for forward error correction.