Structural and dynamic analysis of an ultra short intracavity directional coupler

A recently proposed intracavity directional coupler is analysed. Exact analytic expressions for important parameters such as the transmission ratio, the coupling length, and the photon lifetime are given. We show that by controlling the mirror reflectivities of the cavity, it is theoretically possible to reduce the coupling length to a zero limit. The photon lifetime, which governs the dynamic properties of the structure, sets an upper frequency limit of a few hundreds of GHz, which is well over the bandwidth limitation of microwave lumped or travelling wave electrodes. This novel family of intracavity couplers has important applications in the realization of integrated optics circuits for high-speed computing, data processing, and communication.