Optical Limiting and Switching of Ultrashort Pulses in Nonlinear Photonic Band Gap Materials

We numerically investigate nonlinear propagation of ultrashort pulses in a one-dimensional photonic band gap structure. We find that, near the band edge, nonlinear effects cause a dynamical shift in the location of the band gap. We demonstrate that this nonlinear mechanism can induce intensity-dependent pulse transmission and reflections. In addition, pulse reshaping and pulse generation is observed. This phenomenon has important new applications in both optical limiting and optical switching.