Patent ID: 7826688

Claim:
A method for manipulating an optical beam, having a bandwidth centered about λ 1 , said method comprising: propagating an optical beam along a first waveguide; attenuating the optical beam in said first waveguide by inducing destructive interference with a resonant cavity proximal to said first waveguide, said resonant cavity comprising a medium optically transmissive to said optical beam and having an effective refractive index, n; modulating said attenuation induced in said first waveguide by tuning and detuning said resonant cavity using a first effect, said tuning and detuning accomplished by varying a modulation signal applied to said resonant cavity to alter the effective refractive index, n, of said medium in said tunable resonant cavity; and increasing the sensitivity of the tunable resonant cavity to said modulation signal using a second effect, the second effect being different from the first effect, wherein the second effect comprises providing optical energy of sufficient intensity within the resonant cavity to induce a non-linear optical effect in the medium in said resonant cavity.