A study of optoelectronics in photonic nanowires made from photonic crystals

We have studied optoelectronic properties of photonic nanowires doped with an ensemble of four-level nanoparticles. Nanowires are made from two photonic crystals A and B where crystal A is embedded in B. Photons are confined with the photonic nanowire due to the band structure engineering of crystals A and B. A probe field is applied to monitor the absorption spectrum, and a control field is applied to shift the position of absorption peak. It is considered that nanoparticles are interacting with bound photon states of the nanowire. It is found that the number of bound states in the wire depends on the size and the energy depth of the wire. It is also found that when the resonance energy lies near the bound state, the system goes from absorbing state to the transparent state. This is due to the strong coupling between nanoparticles and bound photons in the wire. The control field switches the system from the transparent state to the absorbing state by changing the location of the resonance energy. The present findings can be used to make new types of optoelectronic switches.