
12.4 STOPPING LIGHT IN DYNAMIC PHOTONIC
CRYSTALS
As a last example of this chapter, we show that one could use temporal coupled-
mode theory as a guide for designing dynamic photonic crystals. The idea of
dynamic photonic crystal is to modulate the property of a crystal while an optical
pulse is inside the crystal. In doing so, the spectrum of the pulse can be molded
almost arbitrarily with a small refractive index modulation, leading to highly
nontrivial information-processing capabilities on chip. As examples of such cap-
abilities, we show that the bandwidth of a light pulse can be compressed to zero,
resulting in all-optical stopping and storage ...