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 and observed experimentally for the structures based on micro-ring resonators and photonic crystal cavities. Both CRIR and CRIT effects have the same physical origin which can be attributed to the Fano-Feshbach resonances in the systems exhibiting more than one resonance. We discuss the applicability of the novel CRIR effect to the control of the slow-light propagation and low-threshold all-optical switching.
We propose and demonstrate a dispersion control technique by combination of different waveguide cross sections in an aluminum nitride micro-ring resonator. Narrow and wide waveguides with normal and anomalous dispersion, respectively, are linked with tapering waveguides and enclosed in a ring resonator to produce a total dispersion near zero. The mode-coupling in multimoded waveguides is also effectively suppressed. This technique provides new degrees of freedom and enhanced flexibility in engineering the dispersion of microcomb resonators.
We report a study of using the same material to fabricate a whispering gallery mode resonator and a coupler. Coupling to high Q whispering gallery modes of the lithium niobate resonator is demonstrated by means of the titanium-doped waveguide. The waveguide coupling approach opens possibilities for simpler and wider practical usage of whispering gallery mode resonators and their integration into optical devices.
Among various plasmonic waveguides, the metal-insulator-metal (MIM) type is the most promising for true subwavelength photonic integration. To date, many photonic devices based on MIM waveguides have been investigated, including resonators. However, most of the reported MIM ring resonators suffer from low extinction ratios. In this paper, we present a comprehensive analysis of the intrinsic reasons for the low performance of MIM ring resonators, and give the analytical transmission relation for a universal all-pass ring resonator which has coupling loss. Based on the analysis we propose the pl…
We consider the lateral optical force between resonator and waveguide, and study the possibility of an equilibrium that occurs solely from the optical force. We prove analytically that a single- resonance system cannot give such an equilibrium in resonator-waveguide force. We then show that two-resonance systems can provide such an equilibrium. We provide an intuitive way to predict the existence of an equilibrium, and give numerical examples.
We study the differential group delay that can be obtained in coupled micro-ring resonator waveguides with longitudinal offset couplers. Various devices based on this effect are proposed and analyzed using a finite-differences time-domain method and their potential applications are discussed.
We study the effect of rotation on the propagation of electromagnetic waves in slow-light waveguide structures consisting of coupled micro-ring resonators. We show that such configurations exhibit new a type of the Sagnac effect which can be used for the realization of highly-compact integrated rotation sensors and gyroscopes.
We demonstrate low loss ridge waveguides and the first ring resonators for the mid-infrared, for wavelengths ranging from 5.4 to 5.6 μm. Structures were fabricated using electron-beam lithography on the silicon-on-sapphire material system. Waveguide losses of 4.0 +/- 0.7 dB/cm are achieved, as well as Q-values of 3.0 k.
We report on the realization and optical characterization of a CMOS-compatible silicon-based microresonator/waveguide coupled system, fully integrated on a silicon chip. The device uses a vertical coupling scheme between the resonator and a buried strip waveguide. We demonstrate that its high optical quality follows from the accurate planarization of the waveguide topography. More importantly, we demonstrate a wafer-scale mass fabrication of freestanding planar resonators suspended in air and coupled to the integrated bus waveguides. A nanometer control of the coupling distances allows for a p…
We report on a combined theoretical and experimental study of the optical coupling between a microdisk resonator and a waveguide laying on different planes. While the lateral coupling between a planar resonator and a waveguide is characterized by a unique distance at which the resonant waveguide transmission vanishes because of destructive interference, the vertical coupling geometry exhibits an oscillatory behavior in the coupling amplitude as a function of the vertical gap. This effect manifests experimentally as oscillations in both the waveguide transmission and the mode quality factor. An…
We show that the implementation of the longitudinal displacement technique for adjusting the coupling coefficients in microring waveguides is subject to a phase asymmetry effect. This issue is shown to substantially alter the system response in apodized filters and cannot be ignored in the design stage.
Tapered silica fibers are often used to rapidly probe the optical properties of micro-resonators. However, their low refractive index precludes phase-matching when coupling to high-index micro-resonators, reducing efficiency. Here we demonstrate efficient optical coupling from tapered fibers to high-index micro-resonators by loading the fibers with an ancillary adiabatic waveguide-coupler fabricated via angled-etching. We demonstrate greatly enhanced coupling to a silicon multimode micro-resonator when compared to coupling via the bare fiber only. Signatures of resonator optical bistability ar…
We demonstrate the elements of a coupled-resonator optical waveguide in a side-coupled Fabry-Pérot configuration, and show that the coupling rate between adjacent waveguides can be widely tuned through the thermo-optic effect. The device is linearly scalable and can be combined with other integrated devices, with applications as an optical delay line or as a key element in a cavity-QED based quantum simulator.
We explore the potential use of complementary split ring resonators (csrr's) and complementary spirals of two and three turns (csr2 and csr3) to design very compact waveguide filters. We demonstrate its passband response in an experimental and computational form. Besides, it is shown that the design process can be highly simplified by means of a new waveguide model that reduce full wave numerical simulations. Thus, it is possible to design waveguide filters with lengths equal to the thickness of a metallic sheets, leading to an improvement in the design of miniaturized waveguide filters.
In this work, we focus on stub resonators embedded in plasmonic slot waveguides. The resonators have potential applications in optical interconnects and sensors. We fabricate the samples by electron beam lithography and lift-off. We use a scattering matrix based model to quantify the optical power output from the samples. We measure the properties of the resonators by coupling light in and out of the slot waveguides by optical antennas, making use of a cross-polarization based setup utilizing a supercontinuum source and a high numerical aperture objective lens operating in the telecom-waveleng…
We report on a joint theoretical and experimental study of an integrated photonic device consisting of a single mode waveguide vertically coupled to a disk-shaped microresonator. Starting from the general theory of open systems, we show how the presence of a neighboring waveguide induces reactive inter-mode coupling in the resonator, analogous to an off-diagonal Lamb shift from atomic physics. Observable consequences of this coupling manifest as peculiar Fano lineshapes in the waveguide transmission spectra. The theoretical predictions are validated by full vectorial 3D finite element numerica…
We study the dispersion relations in slow-light waveguide structures consisting of coupled microdisk resonators. A group theoretical analysis of the symmetry properties of the propagating modes reveals an interesting phenomenon: The degeneracy of the CW and CCW rotating modes is removed, giving rise to two distinct transmission bands. This effect induces symmetry-based dispersion which may limit usable bandwidth of such structures. The properties of this band splitting and its impact on CROW performance for optical communications are studied in detail.
We study the optical transmission of a waveguide that is side-coupled to a high-$Q$ circular microresonator. The coupling is critical if the intrinsic resonator losses equate the coupling losses to the waveguide. When this happens, the transmittance of the waveguide displays resonance dips with maximal depth as the frequency is swept through the resonators resonances. We show that multiple configurations, parameterised by the minimal distance between the resonator and the waveguide, can lead to critical coupling. Indeed, for a sufficiently large resonator radius, the flow of power between the …
We study the transmission properties for the waveguide bends composed by a circular photonic crystal. Two types (Y and U type) of the waveguide bends utilizing the circular photonic crystal are studied. It has been shown, compared with the conventional photonic crystal waveguide bends, transmission properties for these bends can be significantly improved. Over a 6.4% bandwidth, less than 1-dB loss/bend are observed. U bent waveguide, i.e., $180^o$ bend, can be easily realized with low loss using the circular photonic crystal.
We study the transmission of light through a system consisting of an arbitrary number $N$ of microtoroidal resonators coupled to a one-dimensional (1D) waveguide. The transmission $T$ through such a system and its full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) are calculated for various values of $N$ and mutual-mode coupling coefficients. We found that at small mutual-mode coupling, the minimum transmission vanishes exponentially with $N$ while the FWHM is proportional to $\sqrt{N}$. At big mutual-mode coupling, as the number of resonators increases, the mode-splitting is reduced. Our findings contribute t…
We propose a new class of one-dimensional (1D) photonic waveguides: the fractal photonic crystal waveguides (FPCWs). These structures are photonic crystal waveguides (PCWs) etched with fratal distribution of grooves such as Cantor bars. The transmission properties of the FPCWs are investigated and compared with those of the conventional 1D PCWs. It is shown that the FPCW transmission spectrum has self-similarity properties associated with the fractal distribution of grooves. Furthermore, FPCWs exhibit sharp localized transmissions peaks that are approximately equidistant inside the photonic ba…
Much progress, both experimentally and theoretically, has recently been made towards optical frequency comb generation from continuously pumped second-order nonlinear systems. Here, we present the first observations towards finding an integrated solution for such a system, using a titanium indiffused lithium niobate waveguide resonator. These results are compared to recently developed theory for equivalent systems. The system is seen to exhibit strong instabilities, which require further investigation in order to fully determine the suitability of this platform for stable optical frequency com…
We present a general approach for coupling a specific mode in a planar photonic crystal (PC) waveguide to a desired free-space mode. We apply this approach to a W1 PC waveguide by introducing small index perturbations to selectively couple a particular transverse mode to an approximately Gaussian, slowly diverging free space mode. This "perturbative photonic crystal waveguide coupler" (PPCWC) enables efficient interconversion between selectable propagating photonic crystal and free space modes with minimal design perturbations.
We present slow-light photonic crystal waveguide designs that provide a $\times$8.6 improvement of the local density of optical states at a fully chiral point over previous designs.
Coupled-resonator optical waveguides (CROWs), which play a significant role in modern photonics, achieve waveguiding through near-field coupling between tightly localized resonators. The coupling factor, a critical parameter in CROW theory, determines the coupling strength between two resonators and the waveguiding dispersion of a CROW. However, the original CROW theory proposed by Yariv et al. only demonstrated one value of coupling factor for a multipole resonance mode. Here, by imaging the tight-binding Bloch waves on a CROW consisting of designer-surface-plasmon resonators in the microwave…
We study coupling and decoupling of parallel waveguides in two-dimensional square-lattice photonic crystals. We show that the waveguide coupling is prohibited at some wavelengths when there is an odd number of rows between the waveguides. In contrast, decoupling does not take place when there is even number of rows between the waveguides. Decoupling can be used to avoid cross talk between adjacent waveguides.
We report a planar 1D photonic bandgap waveguide exhibiting four second-order exceptional points (EP2s). The interactions between the selective pairs of supported quasi-guided TE modes are modulated by spatial distribution of transverse in-homogeneous gain-loss profile.
We analyze the resonant linear and nonlinear transmission through a photonic crystal waveguide side-coupled to a Kerr-nonlinear photonic crystal resonator. Firstly, we extend the standard coupled-mode theory analysis to photonic crystal structures and obtain explicit analytical expressions for the bistability thresholds and transmission coefficients which provide the basis for a detailed understanding of the possibilities associated with these structures. Next, we discuss limitations of standard coupled-mode theory and present an alternative analytical approach based on the effective discrete …
We study the optomechanical design introduced by M. Li et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 103}, 223901 (2009)], which is very effective for investigation of the effects of reactive coupling. We show the normal mode splitting which is due solely to reactive coupling rather than due to dispersive coupling. We suggest feeding the waveguide with a pump field along with a probe field and scanning the output probe for evidence of reactive-coupling-induced normal mode splitting.
We control the diffusion of light in a disordered photonic waveguide by modulating the waveguide geometry. In a single waveguide of varying cross-section, the diffusion coefficient changes spatially in two dimensions due to localization effects. The intensity distribution inside the waveguide agrees to the prediction of the self-consistent theory of localization. Our work shows that wave diffusion can be efficiently manipulated without modifying the structural disorder.
Whispering-gallery mode crystalline resonators currently maintain the best quality factor (Q) record, however, compact on-chip packaging is still a challenge although various coupling architectures have been developed. Here, a chemical etching method is proposed to fabricate a miniaturized tapered fiber waveguide on silicon substrate. The Marangoni effect is implemented to reduce the surface roughness of the cone region. The optical loss of 0.1 dB/mm is obtained, and the Q of on-chip crystalline resonator exceeds 108. Additionally, TEC is implanted in the package to actively customize the temp…
The efficiency of evanescent coupling between a silica optical fiber taper and a silicon photonic crystal waveguide is studied. A high reflectivity mirror on the end of the photonic crystal waveguide is used to recollect, in the backwards propagating fiber mode, the optical power that is initially coupled into the photonic crystal waveguide. An outcoupled power in the backward propagating fiber mode of 88% of the input power is measured, corresponding to a lower bound on the coupler efficiency of 94%.
We demonstrate soliton-effect pulse compression in mm-long photonic crystal waveguides resulting from strong anomalous dispersion and self-phase modulation. Compression from 3ps to 580fs, at low pulse energies(~10pJ), is measured via autocorrelation.
We report enhanced optomechanical coupling by embedding a nano-mechanical beam resonator within an optical race-track resonator. Precise control of the mechanical resonator is achieved by clamping the beam between two low-loss photonic crystal waveguide couplers. The low insertion loss and the rigid mechanical support provided by the couplers yield both high mechanical and optical Q-factors for improved signal quality.
Coupling of photonic crystal (PC) linear three-hole defect cavities (L3) to PC waveguides is theoretically and experimentally investigated. The systems are designed to increase the overlap between the evanescent cavity field and the waveguide mode, and to operate in the linear dispersion region of the waveguide. Our simulations indicate increased coupling when the cavity is tilted by 60 degrees with respect to the waveguide axis, which we have also confirmed by experiments. We obtained up to 90% coupling efficiency into the waveguide.
We propose and demonstrate subwavelength grating (SWG) metamaterial waveguides and ring resonators on a silicon nitride platform for the first time. The SWG waveguide is engineered such that a large overlap of 53% of the Bloch mode with the top cladding material is achieved, demonstrating excellent potential for applications in evanescent field sensing and light amplification. The devices, which have critical dimensions greater than 100 nm, are fabricated using a commercial rapid turn-around silicon nitride prototyping foundry process using electron beam lithography. Experimental characterizat…
A novel type of a plasmonic waveguide has been proposed featuring an "open" design that is easy to manufacture, simple to excite and that offers a convenient access to a plasmonic mode. Optical properties of photonic bandgap (PBG) plasmonic waveguides are investigated experimentally by leakage radiation microscopy and numerically using the finite element method confirming photonic bandgap guidance in a broad spectral range. Propagation and localization characteristics of a PBG plasmonic waveguide have been discussed as a function of the wavelength of operation, waveguide core size and the numb…
We propose a scheme to realize controlled phase gate between two single photons through a single quantum dot in slow-light silicon photonic crystal waveguide. Enhanced Purcell factor and beta factor lead to high gate fidelity over broadband frequencies compared to cavity-assisted system. The excellent physical integration of this silicon photonic crystal waveguide system provides tremendous potential for large-scale quantum information processing.
This paper presents a very simple analytical model for the design of Frequency Selective Surfaces based on Complementary Split Ring Resonators (CSRR) within the microwave range. Simple expressions are provided for the most important geometrical parameters of the model, yielding an accurate description of the CSRR resonance frequency and avoiding full-wave numerical simulations. Besides, a qualitative description of the band-pass filter behavior of these structures is described, considering its high quality factor Q.
We study the coupling between photonic molecules and waveguides in photonic crystal slab structures using finite-difference time-domain method and coupled mode theory. In a photonic molecule with two cavities, the coupling of cavity modes results in two super-modes with symmetric and anti-symmetric field distributions. When two super-modes are excited simultaneously, the energy of electric field oscillates between the two cavities. To excite and probe the energy oscillation, we integrate photonic molecule with two photonic crystal waveguides. In coupled structure, we find that the quality fact…
We report on the proposal and experimental realization of a spoof surface plasmon Fabry-Perot (FP) open resonator in a surface-wave photonic crystal. This surface-wave FP open resonator is formed by introducing a finite line defect in a surface-wave photonic crystal. The resonance frequencies of the surface-wave FP open resonator lie exactly within the forbidden band gap of the surface-wave photonic crystal and the FP open resonator uses this complete forbidden band gap to concentrate surface waves within a subwavelength cavity. Due to the complete forbidden band gap of the surface-wave photon…
We propose the use of silicon graphene waveguides to implement a tunable broadband microwave photonics phase shifte based on integrated ring cavities. Numerical computation results show the feasibility for broadband operation over 40 GHz bandwidth and full 360 degree radiofrequency phase-shift with a modest voltage excursion of 0.12 volt.
We propose a design of two-dimensional bi-anisotropic meta-waveguide exhibiting topologically nontrivial photonic phase and robust photonic transport. The structure proposed represents a waveguide formed by a periodic array of metallic cylinders placed inside parallel metal plates and is designed to support two pairs of Dirac cones thus allowing emulation of the spin of the electrons in condensed matter systems. It is shown, that by making the meta-waveguide bi-anisotropic one can mimic the spin-orbital interaction in topological insulators and open a complete photonic topological band gap. Fi…
Compact and low-loss photonic crystal waveguides are critical in integrated terahertz (THz) applications. Compared with pure metal or dielectric photonic crystal waveguides, hybrid (metal-dielectric) integrated waveguides provide a simple way to further improve the field confinement and the propagation loss. In this work, we investigate a hybrid waveguide consisting of metallic photonic crystals and dielectric films in 0.1-1.0 THz. Photonic crystal waveguides based on metal pillar arrays (MPAs) support two resonance modes including the fundamental and high-order transverse magnetic (TM) modes …
We report the observations of spontaneous Raman scattering in silicon photonic crystal waveguides. Continuous-wave measurements of Stokes emission for both wavelength and power dependence is reported in single line-defect waveguides in hexagonal lattice photonic crystal silicon membranes. By utilizing the Bragg gap edge dispersion of the TM-like mode for pump enhancement and the TE-like fundamental mode-onset for Stokes enhancement, the Stokes emission was observed to increase by up to five times in the region of slow group velocity. The results show explicit nonlinear enhancement in a silicon…
We demonstrate enhanced second harmonic generation in a gallium phosphide photonic crystal waveguide with a measured external conversion efficiency of 5$\times10^{-7}$/W. Our results are promising for frequency conversion of on-chip integrated emitters having broad spectra or large inhomogeneous broadening, as well as for frequency conversion of ultrashort pulses.
We experimentally demonstrate a new optical filter design based on a vertically coupled photonic crystal cavity and a bus waveguide monolithically integrated on the silicon on insulator platform. The use of a vertically coupled waveguide gives flexibility in the choice of the waveguide material and dimensions, dramatically lowering the insertion loss while achieving very high coupling efficiencies to wavelength scale resonators
We investigate numerically optical properties of novel two-dimensional photonic materials where parallel dielectric rods are randomly placed with the restriction that the distance between rods is larger than a certain value. A large complete photonic gap (PG) is found when rods have sufficient density and dielectric contrast. Our result shows that neither long-range nor short-range order is an essential prerequisite to the formation of PGs. A universal principle is proposed for designing arbitrarily shaped waveguides, where waveguides are fenced with side walls of periodic rods and surrounded …
Optical microresonators are of paramount importance in photonic circuits requiring fine spectral filtering or resonant light recirculation. Key performance metrics improve with increasing resonance quality factor (Q) across all applications. The performance of silicon photonic circuits is often hampered by the low-quality factor of planar silicon microresonators, typically of Q~10^4-10^5. On the other hand, bulk whispering gallery mode resonators provide a wide range of materials with intriguing optical properties and exceptionally high resonant quality factors Q>10^7. However, the efficient c…
We propose and analyze novel surface-state-based waveguides in bandgap photonic crystals. We discuss surface mode band structure, field localization and effect of imperfections on the waveguiding properties of the surface modes. We demonstrate that surface-state-based waveguides can be used to achieve directional emission out of the waveguide. We also discuss the application of the surface-state waveguides as efficient light couplers for conventional photonic crystal waveguides.
An effort was conducted to numerically determine, using the Nonlinear Schrodinger Split-Step Fourier method, if using cross phase modulation could cause temporal soliton pulse propagation in a silicon slow-light photonic crystal waveguide shorter than a millimeter. The simulations demonstrated that due to the higher powers and shorter scales of photonic crystals, two-photon absorption would cause an optical soliton pulse to be extremely dissipative. The model demonstrated, however, that by utilizing cross-phase modulation, it is possible to sustain a compressed soliton pulse within a silicon p…
A topologically protected ring-resonator formed in valley photonic crystals is proposed and fabricated on a silicon slab. The unidirectional transmission and robustness against structure defects of its resonant modes are illustrated. Coupled with topological waveguides, the topological ring is functioned as notch and channel-drop filters. The work opens up a new avenue for developing advanced chip-integrated photonic circuits with attributes of topological photonics.
We present a semi-analytic method to calculate the dispersion curves and the group velocity of photonic crystal waveguide modes in two-dimensional geometries. We model the waveguide as a homogenous strip, surrounded by photonic crystal acting as diffracting mirrors. Following conventional guided-wave optics, the properties of the photonic crystal waveguide may be calculated from the phase upon propagation over the strip and the phase upon reflection. The cases of interest require a theory including the specular order and one other diffracted reflected order. The computational advantages let us…
Waveguides composed of electromagnetically-coupled optical microcavities (coupled resonator optical waveguides or CROWs) can be used for light guiding, slowing and storage. In this paper, we present a two-dimensional analysis of finite-size straight and curved CROW sections based on a rigorous Muller boundary integral equations method. We study mechanisms of the coupling of whispering gallery (WG) modes and guiding light around bends in CROWs composed of both identical and size-mismatched microdisk resonators. Our accurate analysis reveals differences in WG modes coupling in the vicinity of be…
A novel terahertz hybrid waveguide chip consisting of silicon photonic crystals sandwiched in parallel gold plates is developed. Both simulation and experimental results demonstrate that the hybrid waveguide offers a wide single-mode transmission window with low group velocity dispersion and low loss. This compact, substrate-free terahertz chip would play a significant role in broadband, dense-integrated, multi-functional terahertz systems.
We propose a concept of chiral photonic limiters utilising topologically protected localised midgap defect states in a photonic waveguide. The chiral symmetry alleviates the effects of structural imperfections and guaranties a high level of resonant transmission for low intensity radiation. At high intensity, the light-induced absorption can suppress the localised modes, along with the resonant transmission. In this case the entire photonic structure becomes highly reflective within a broad frequency range, thus increasing dramatically the damage threshold of the limiter. Here we demonstrate e…
