Photonic crystal chips for optical communications and quantum information processing

We discuss recent our recent progress on functional photonic crystals devices and circuits for classical and quantum information processing. For classical applications, we have demonstrated a room-temperature-operated, low threshold, nanocavity laser with pulse width in the picosecond regime; and an all-optical switch controlled with 60 fJ pulses that shows switching time on the order of tens of picoseconds. For quantum information processing, we discuss the promise of quantum networks on multifunctional photonic crystals chips. We also discuss a new coherent probing technique of quantum dots coupled to photonic crystal nanocavities and demonstrate amplitude and phase nonlinearities realized with control beams at the single photon level.