Quantum coherence in atomic systems has led to fascinating outcomes, such as laser cooling and trapping, Bose-Einstein condensates, and electromagnetically-induced-transparency (EIT). In EIT, the sharp cancellation of medium absorption has led to phenomena such as lasing without inversion, freezing light, and dynamic storage of light in a solid-state system. Similar to atomic systems, EIT-like effects can be observed through classical and optical means. Here we report the first experimental deterministic tuning of all-optical analogue to EIT in coherently-coupled standing-wave photonic crystal cavities. Our observations include transparency-resonance lifetimes more than three times the single loaded cavity, Fano-type lineshapes, and stepwise control of the coherent cavity-cavity interference. Our system, with wavelength-scale localization and coupled to a single waveguide, is analyzed well through the coupled-mode formalism which examines the delay in both transparency- and Fano-like lineshapes. Our observations support applications towards all-optical trapping, stopping and time-reversal of light in a solid-state scalable implementation.
Chiral cavities made from lattices of highly electromagnetically-chiral scatterers
Institute of Theoretical Solid State Physics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology（卡尔斯鲁厄理工学院理论固体物理研究所）；Institute of Nanotechnology, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology（卡尔斯鲁厄理工学院纳米技术研究所）
We propose a novel configuration that utilizes electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) to tailor a fiber mode propagating inside a thin optical fiber and coherently control its dispersion properties to drastically reduce the group velocity of the fiber mode. The key to this proposal is: the evanescent-like field of the thin fiber strongly couples with the surrounding active medium, so that the EIT condition is met by the medium. We show how the properties of the fiber mode is modified due to the EIT medium, both numerically and analytically. We demonstrate that the group velocity of the…
We analyze the stability and dynamics of dissipative Kerr solitons in the presence of a parabolic potential. This potential stabilizes oscillatory and chaotic regimes, favoring the generation of static DKSs. Furthermore, the potential induces the emergence of new dissipative structures, such as asymmetric breathers and chimera-like states. Based on a mode decomposition of these states, we unveil the underlying modal interactions.
We experimentally demonstrate the Talbot effect resulting from the repeated self-reconstruction of a spatially intensity-modulated probe field under the Fresnel near-field regime. By launching the probe beam into an optically induced atomic lattice (established by interfering two coupling fields) inside a rubidium vapor cell, we can obtain an diffracted probe beam pattern from an formed electromagnetically induced grating (EIG) in a three-level $Λ$-type Doppler-free atomic configuration with the assistance of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). The EIG-based diffraction pattern rep…
For the coherently driven Λ-type three-level systems the general ready-to-calculate expression for the susceptibility tensor at the frequency of the weak probe field is obtained for the arbitrary polarization of the strong coupling laser field and arbitrary values of the angular momenta of resonant atomic levels. The dependence of the relative difference in the group velocities of the two polarization components of the probe field on the polarization of the coupling field is studied.
We consider dynamically controllable periodic structures, called Raman induced gratings, in three- and four-level atomic media, resulting from Raman interaction in a standing-wave pump. These gratings are due to periodic spatial modulation of the Raman nonlinearity and fundamentally differ from the ones based on electromagnetically induced transparency. The transmission and reflection spectra of such gratings can be simultaneously amplified and controlled by varying the pump field intensity. It is shown that a transparent medium with periodic spatial modulation of the Raman gain can be opaque …
We report on the first experimental observation of spontaneous mirror symmetry breaking (SSB) in coherently driven-dissipative coupled optical cavities. SSB is observed as the breaking of the spatial or mirror Z2 symmetry between two symmetrically pumped and evanescently coupled photonic crystal nanocavities, and manifests itself as random intensity localization in one of the two cavities. We show that, in a system featuring repulsive boson interactions (U > 0), the observation of a pure pitchfork bifurcation requires negative photon hopping energies (J < 0), which we have realized in our phot…
We present the integrated chip-scale tuning of multiple photonic crystal cavities. The optimized implementation allows effective and precise tuning of multiple cavity resonances (up to ~1.60 nm/mW) and inter-cavity phase (~ 0.038 pi/mW) by direct local temperature tuning on silicon nanomembranes. Through designing the serpentine metal electrodes and careful electron-beam alignment to avoid cavity mode overlap, the coupled photonic crystal L3 cavities preserve their high quality factors. The deterministic resonance and phase control enables switching between the all-optical analogue of electrom…
We demonstrate temporal group delays in coherently-coupled high-Q multi-cavity photonic crystals, in an all-optical analogue to electromagnetically induced transparency. We report deterministic control of the group delay up to 4x the single cavity lifetime in our CMOS-fabricated room-temperature chip. Supported by three-dimensional numerical simulations and theoretical analyses, our multi-pump beam approach enables control of the multi-cavity resonances and inter-cavity phase, in both single and double transparency peaks. The standing-wave wavelength-scale photon localization allows direct sca…
The interaction of magnetic dipole (MD) emitters and common photonic cavities is usually weak, which is partially due to the low magnetic near field enhancements of the cavities. Here, we show that whispering gallery modes (WGMs) of a subwavelength dielectric cavity can not only greatly boost the emission rate of a MD emitter but also bring efficient couplings between coherent MD emitters. In a WGM cavity, the maximal emission rate (γmax) of a single emitter occurs at an antinode of the field pattern. The emission of the MD emitter can also be greatly affected by another coherent one depending…
A coherently driven Kerr optical cavity is able to convert a continuous-wave laser to a sequence of ultrashort soliton pulses, enabling the generation of broadband and mode-locked frequency combs. Kerr cavity solitons are balanced through an energy exchange with the driving pump field. Improving the energy conversion efficiency from the pump to the soliton is of great significance for practical applications, but remains an outstanding challenge due to a limited temporal overlap between the soliton and the pump. Here, we report the discovery of temporal Kerr solitons in mutually coupled cavitie…
We study the resonant transmission of light in a coupled-resonator optical waveguide interacting with two nearly identical side cavities. We reveal and describe a novel effect of the coupled-resonator-induced reflection (CRIR) characterized by a very high and easily tunable quality factor of the reflection line, for the case of the inter-site coupling between the cavities and the waveguide. This effect differs sharply from the coupled-resonator-induced transparency (CRIT) -- an all-optical analogue of the electromagnetically-induced transparency -- which has recently been studied theoretically…
Kerr optical frequency combs generated in a coherently driven Kerr nonlinear resonator has the potential for a wide range of applications. However, in a single cavity which is a widely adopted configuration for Kerr optical frequency combs generation, modulation instability is suppressed in normal dispersion regime and the pump-to-comb conversion efficiency is extremely low for a single dissipative Kerr soliton in anomalous dispersion regime. Dual-coupled cavities have been proposed to generate Kerr optical frequency combs in normal dispersion regime, and have potential to remarkably increase …
Propagation of light pulses through negative group velocity media is known to give rise to a number of paradoxical situations that seem to violate causality. The solution of these paradoxes has triggered the investigation of a number of interesting and unexpected features of light propagation. Here we report a combined theoretical and experimental study of the ring-down oscillations in optical cavities filled with a medium with such a strongly negative frequency dispersion to give a negative round-trip group delay time. We theoretically anticipate that causality imposes the existence of additi…
In this paper, we analyze a chain-linked triple-cavity photonic molecule (TCPM) with controllable coupling strengths between the cavities on their spectral properties and field (energy) distributions by solving eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the Hamiltonian matrix based on coupled mode theory. Phase transition is extended from double-cavity photonic molecules (DCPMs) to TCPMs, and evolutions of the supermode frequencies and linewidths are analyzed, which have synchronous relations with the degree of coherence between adjacent optical microcavities and energy distributions in the three cavitie…
Lasers differ from other light sources in that they are coherent, and their coherence makes them indispensable to both fundamental research and practical application. In optomechanical cavities, phonon and photon lasing is facilitated by the ability of photons and phonons to interact intensively and excite one another coherently. The lasing linewidths of both phonons and photons are critical for practical application. However, thus far, these linewidths have not been explored in detail in cavity optomechanical systems. This study investigates the underlying dynamics of lasing in optomechanical…
Nonlinear dynamics of intra-cavity-field for periodically pump-modulated dual-coupled Kerr micro-ring cavities
College of Physics, Hangzhou Dianzi University（杭州电子科技大学物理学院）；State Key Laboratory of Quantum Optics Technologies and Devices, Shanxi University（山西大学量子光学技术与器件国家重点实验室）；Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Quantum State Control and Optical Field Manipulation, Hangzhou Dianzi University（杭州电子科技大学浙江省量子态调控与光场操纵重点实验室）
We propose and analyze an efficient scheme for suppressing the absorption of a weak probe field based on intersubband transitions in a four-level asymmetric coupled-quantum well (CQW) driven coherently by a probe laser field and a control laser field. By using the numerical simulation, we find that the magnitude of the transient absorption of the probe field is smaller than the three-level system based on the electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) at line center of the probe transition, moreover, comparing with the scheme in three-level asymmetric double QW system, the transparency hol…
Photonic molecules, named by analogy with chemical molecules, are clusters of closely located electromagnetically interacting microcavities or "photonic atoms". As two or several microcavities are brought close together, their optical modes interact, and a rich spectrum of photonic molecule supermodes emerges, which depends both on geometrical and material properties of individual cavities and on their mutual interactions. Here, we discuss ways of controllable manipulation of photonic molecule supermodes, which improve or add new functionalities to microcavity-based optical components. We pres…
We consider an optomechanical double-ended cavity under the action of a coupling laser and a probe laser in electromagnetically induced transparency configuration. It is shown how the group delay and advance of the probe field can be controlled by the power of the coupling field. In contrast to single-ended cavities, only allowing for superluminal propagation, possibility of both superluminal and subluminal propagation regimes are found. The magnitudes of the group delay and the advance are calculated to be 1ms and -2s, respectively, at a very low pumping power of a few microwatts. In addition…
Based on a formalism that describes atom-light interactions in terms of the classical electromagnetic Green's function, we study the optical response of atoms and other quantum emitters coupled to one-dimensional photonic structures, such as cavities, waveguides, and photonic crystals. We demonstrate a clear mapping between the transmission spectra and the local Green's function that allows to identify signatures of dispersive and dissipative interactions between atoms. We also demonstrate the applicability of our analysis to problems involving three-level atoms, such as electromagnetically in…
Optically-active spin systems coupled to photonic cavities with high cooperativity can generate strong light-matter interactions, a key ingredient in quantum networks. But obtaining high cooperativities for quantum information processing often involves the use of photonic crystal cavities that feature a poor optical access from the free space, especially to circularly polarized light required for the coherent control of the spin. Here, we demonstrate coupling with cooperativity as high as $8$ of an InAs/GaAs quantum dot to a fabricated bullseye cavity that provides nearly degenerate and Gaussi…
We propose and analyze a scheme for controlling coherent photon transmission and reflection in a cavity-quantum-electrodynamics (CQED) system consisting of an optical resonator coupled with three-level atoms coherently prepared by a control laser from free space. When the control laser is off and the cavity is excited by two identical light fields from two ends of the cavity, the two input light fields can be completely absorbed by the CQED system and the light energy is converted into the excitation of the polariton states, but no light can escape from the cavity. Two distinct cases of contro…
Leveraging the quantum information processing ability of superconducting circuits and long-distance distribution ability of optical photons promises the realization of complex and large-scale quantum networks. In such a scheme, a coherent and efficient quantum transducer between superconducting and photonic circuits is critical. However, such quantum transducer is still challenging since the use of intermediate excitations in current schemes introduces extra noise and limits bandwidth. Here we realize direct and coherent transduction between superconducting and photonic circuits based on tripl…
In this study, a standing wave in an optical nanocavity with Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) constitutes a one-dimensional optical lattice potential in the presence of a finite two bodies atomic interaction. We report that the interaction of a BEC with a standing field in an optical cavity coherently evolves to exhibit Fano resonances in the output field at the probe frequency. The behavior of the reported resonance shows an excellent compatibility with the original formulation of asymmetric resonance as discovered by Fano [U. Fano, Phys. Rev. 124, 1866 (1961)]. Based on our analytical and nume…
Mode splitting induced by coherent optical mode interference in coupled resonant cavities is a key phenomenon in photonic resonators that can lead to powerful and versatile filtering functions, in close analogy to electromagnetically-induced-transparency, Autler-Townes splitting, Fano resonances, and dark states. It can not only break the dependence between quality factor, free spectral range, and physical cavity length, but can also lead to group delay response and mode interactions that are useful for enhancing light-material interaction and dispersion engineering in nonlinear optics. In thi…
We present a photonics integrated circuit on silicon substrate withreconfigurable nonreciprocal transmission that exhibits a large isolationratio and low insertion loss. It also offers ability for all-optical function-alities, like optical computing gates, or a flip-flop. The circuit is a mixedcavity system of which the linear transmission can be tuned as a Fanoresonance or electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) using twointegrated heaters. With high optical intensity inside the cavity, the Fanoresonance and EIT peak induce a strong distortion due to thermal non-linearities in the cavi…
Cavity-mediated magnon-magnon coupling can lead to a transfer of spin-wave excitations between two spatially separated magnetic samples. We enunciate how the application of a two-photon parametric drive to the cavity can lead to stark amplification in this transfer efficiency. The recurrent multiphoton absorption by the cavity opens up an infinite ladder of accessible energy levels, which can induce higher-order transitions within the magnon Fock space. This is reflected in a heightened spin-current response from one of the magnetic samples when the neighboring sample is coherently pumped. The…
Atomically thin crystals of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) host excitons with strong binding energies and sizable light-matter interactions. Coupled to optical cavities, monolayer TMDs routinely reach the regime of strong light-matter coupling, where excitons and photons admix coherently to form quasiparticles known as polaritons up to room temperature. Here, we explore the two-dimensional nature of TMD polaritons with cavity-assisted hyperspectral imaging. Using extended WS$_2$ monolayers, we establish the regime of strong coupling with a scanning microcavity to map out polariton pro…
We investigate, experimentally and theoretically, the dynamic optical hysteresis of a coherently driven cavity with non-instantaneous photon-photon interactions. By scanning the frequency detuning between the driving laser and the cavity resonance at different speeds across an optical bistability, we find a hysteresis area that is a non-monotonic function of the scanning speed. As the scanning speed increases and approaches the memory time of the photon-photon interactions, the hysteresis area decays following a power law with exponent -1. The exponent of this power law is independent of the s…
Recent experimental advances enable the fabrication of photonic lattices in which the light propagates with non-trivial energy dispersions. When interfaced with quantum emitters, such systems yield strong collective spontaneous emission phenomena, such as perfect sub-radiance, in which the decay into the bath is completely suppressed, forming bound-states-in-the-continuum. Since such photonic lattices are generally lossy, an alternative way of probing them consists in coherently driving them to an steady-state from which photoluminescence can be extracted. Here, we formalize connections betwee…
Dynamically Tunable Membrane Metasurfaces for Infrared Spectroscopy
University of Wisconsin-Madison（威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校）；Istanbul University（伊斯坦布尔大学）；Argonne National Laboratory（阿贡国家实验室）；Australian National University（澳大利亚国立大学）
