Fano Resonances for Realizing Compact and Low Energy Consumption Photonic Switches

We present our recent experimental work involving nanocavities which enable efficient light-matter interaction in small optical mode volumes. To achieve this, we investigated photonic crystal membrane platforms for designing high-quality (Q) factor nanocavities and efficient planar waveguides. Particularly, we discuss waveguide-nanocavity coupled systems for realization of asymmetric Fano resonances which are characterized by having transmission maximum and minimum in close spectral separation (~1nm) suitable for optical switching applications.