Investigation of fullerenes for high speed low latency, photonic switching

The components in high-speed, all-optical photonic systems must satisfy two essential requirements: (1) high switching speeds in the range of Tbit/s, and (2) low latency, where the latency is the amount of time that the optical signal remains in the device. An important problem precluding the practical implementation of high-speed, all- optical switching is the lack of a material with appropriate nonlinear optical properties needed to effect the switching. Numerous material systems have been studied in the past, but none have met all the necessary requirements. Development of such a material and its incorporation into photonic devices would advance the field tremendously. This Lab-wide LDRD project resolved this critical problem.