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 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 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 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…
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…
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…
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 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.
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…
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.
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…
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.
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…
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…
Frequency combs spanning over an octave have been successfully demonstrated in Kerr nonlinear microresonators on-chip. These micro-combs rely on both engineered dispersion, to enable generation of frequency components across the octave, and on engineered coupling, to efficiently extract the generated light into an access waveguide while maintaining a close to critically-coupled pump. The latter is challenging as the spatial overlap between the access waveguide and the ring modes decays with frequency. This leads to strong coupling variation across the octave, with poor extraction at short wave…
We propose a novel scheme for enhancing the quality factor of coupled resonators optical waveguides (CROWs) when operating near a degenerate band edge (DBE). A DBE is a four-mode exceptional point of degeneracy (EPD) occurring when four Bloch eigenmodes coalesce providing a resonance condition with a giant enhancement in fields. We report an unprecedented scaling law of quality factor of CROWs when operating at the DBE, even in the presence of losses and structural perturbations. Remarkably, the Q factor of the proposed CROW can be engineered to exceed that of a single ring resonator having a …
In this work, we compare the performance of plasmonic waveguide integrated stub resonators based on 2D metal-dielectric-metal and 3D slot waveguide (SWG) geometries. We show that scattering matrix theory can be extended to 3D devices, and by employing scattering matrix theory, we provide the guidelines for designing plasmonic 2D and 3D single-stub and double-stub resonators with a desired spectral response at the design wavelength. We provide transmission maps of 2D and 3D double-stub resonators versus stub lengths, and we specify the different regions on these maps that result in a minimum, a…
Coupled resonator optical waveguides (CROW) can significantly reduce light propagation pulse velocity due to pronounced dispersion properties. A number of interesting applications have been proposed to benefit from such slow-light propagation. Unfortunately, the inevitable presence of disorder, imperfections, and a finite Q value may heavily affect the otherwise attractive properties of CROWs. We show how finite a Q factor limits the maximum attainable group delay time; the group index is limited by Q, but equally important the feasible device length is itself also limited by damping resulting…
Here we propose and study a novel type of plasmonic resonators based on a metal-insulator-metal waveguide and a side-coupled magneto-optical disk controlled by an external magnetic field. The wavenumber change and the transmission of surface-plasmon-polaritons (SPPs) can be tuned by altering the magnetic field and reversible on/off switching of the running SPP modes by a reversal of the direction of the external magnetic field is demonstrated. Resonant enhancement of the magneto-plasmonic modulation by more than 200 times leads to a modulation contrast ratio more than tenfold ratio (90-\%-modu…
We derive a general theory of linear coupling and Kerr nonlinear coupling between modes of dielectric optical resonators from first principles. The treatment is not specific to a particular geometry or choice of mode basis, and can therefore be used as a foundation for describing any phenomenon resulting from any combination of linear coupling, scattering and Kerr nonlinearity, such as bending and surface roughness losses, geometric backscattering, self- and cross-phase modulation, four-wave mixing, third-harmonic generation and Kerr frequency comb generation. The theory is then applied to a t…
We demonstrate full integration of vertical optical ring resonators with silicon nanophotonic waveguides on silicon-on-insulator substrates to accomplish a significant step towards 3D photonic integration. The on-chip integration is realized by rolling up 2D differentially strained TiO2 nanomembranes into 3D microtube cavities on a nanophotonic microchip. The integration configuration allows for out of plane optical coupling between the in-plane nanowaveguides and the vertical microtube cavities as a compact and mechanically stable optical unit, which could enable refined vertical light transf…
We suggest a method for trapping photons in quasi one-dimensional waveguide or coupled-resonator lattices, which is based on an optical analogue of the Aharonov-Bohm cages for charged particles. Light trapping results from a destructive interference of Aharonov-Bohm type induced by a synthetic magnetic field, which is realized by periodic modulation of the waveguide/resonator propagation constants/resonances.
Laser cooling of mechanical degrees of freedom is one of the most significant achievements in the field of opto-mechanics. Here, we report, for the first time to the best of our knowledge, efficient passive optomechanical cooling of the motion of a freestanding waveguide coupled to a whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) resonator. The waveguide is an 8 mm long glass-fiber nanospike, which has a fundamental flexural resonance at Ω/2π = 2.5 kHz and a Q-factor of 1.2 10**5. Upon launching 250 μW laser power at an optical frequency close to the WGM resonant frequency, we observed cooling of the nanospike…
Optical resonators are important devices that control the properties of light and manipulate light-matter interaction. Various optical resonators are designed and fabricated using different techniques. For example, in coupled resonator optical waveguides, light energy is transported to other resonators through near-field coupling. In recent years, magnetic optical resonators based on LC resonance have been realized in several metallic microstructures. Such devices possess stronger local resonance and lower radiation loss compared with electric optical resonators. This study provides an overall…
A $Q$-enhancement strategy for racetrack microresonators is put forward. The design is based on the modification of the resonator geometry in order to mitigate the two main sources of radiation loss in the presence of curved waveguides: the discontinuities at the junctions between straight waveguides and the bent sections, and the continuous loss at the curved waveguide sectors. At the same time, the modifications of the geometry do not affect the versatility of coupling of racetrack resonators in integrated optical circuits, which is their main advantage over ring microresonators. The proposa…
Microresonator devices which posses ultra-high quality factors are essential for fundamental investigations and applications. Microsphere and microtoroid resonators support remarkably high Q's at optical frequencies, while planarity constrains preclude their integration into functional lightwave circuits. Conventional semiconductor processing can also be used to realize ultra-high-Q's with planar wedge-resonators. Still, their full integration with side-coupled dielectric waveguides remains an issue. Here we show the full monolithic integration of a wedge-resonator/waveguide vertically-coupled…
Microcombs -- optical frequency combs generated in coherently-driven nonlinear microresonators -- have attracted significant attention over the last decade. The ability to generate two such combs in a single resonator device has in particular enabled a host of applications from spectroscopy to imaging. Concurrently, novel comb generation techniques such as synchronous pulsed driving have been developed to enhance the efficiency and flexibility of microcomb generation. Here we report on the first experimental demonstration of dual-microcomb generation via synchronous pulsed pumping of a single …
Chipscale microresonators with integrated planar optical waveguides are useful building blocks for linear, nonlinear and quantum optical devices. Loss reduction through improving fabrication processes has resulted in several integrated micro resonator platforms attaining quality (Q) factors of several millions. However only few studies have investigated design-dependent losses, especially with regard to the resonator coupling section. Here we investigate design-dependent parasitic losses, described by the coupling ideality, of the commonly employed microresonator design consisting of a microri…
Integrated optical devices may replace bulk crystal or fiber based assemblies with a more compact and controllable photon pair and heralded single photon source and generate quantum light at telecommunications wavelengths. Here, we propose that a periodic waveguide consisting of a sequence of optical resonators may outperform conventional waveguides or single resonators and generate more than 1 Giga-pairs per second from a sub-millimeter-long room-temperature silicon device, pumped with only about 10 milliwatts of optical power. Furthermore, the spectral properties of such devices provide nove…
We present a novel approach and a theoretical framework for generating high order exceptional points of degeneracy (EPD) in photonic structures based on periodic coupled resonators optical waveguides (CROWs). Such EPDs involve the coalescence of Floquet-Bloch eigenwaves in CROWs, without the presence of gain and loss, which is in contrast to the requirement of Parity-Time (PT) symmetry to develop exceptional points based on gain and loss balance. The EPDs arise here by introducing symmetry breaking in a conventional chain of coupled resonators through coupling the chain of resonators to an adj…
Ultra-high-Q resonators are fundamentally important to optics and microwave photonics. Up to now, it is still very challenging to boost the Q factor while maintaining a compact size for a resonator. Herein, we proposed and demonstrated an ultra-high-Q silicon-nitride (Si3N4) racetrack resonator with uniform multi-mode Si3N4 photonic waveguides. It consists of two multi-mode straight waveguides connected by two multi-mode waveguide bends (MWBs). In particular, the MWBs are based on modified Euler curves, and a multi-mode straight waveguide directional coupler is used for the fundamental mode co…
We report second harmonic generation from a titanium indiffused lithium niobate waveguide resonator device whose cavity length is locked to the fundamental pump laser using an on-chip phase modulator. The device remains locked for more than 5 minutes, producing more than 80\% of the initial second harmonic power. The stability of the system is seen to be limited by DC-drift, a known effect in many lithium niobate systems that include deposited electrodes. The presented device explores the suitability of waveguide resonators in this platform for use in larger integrated networks.
We propose an original method to couple light into a whispering-gallery mode resonator. This method benefits from the mode selectivity and robustness of the prism-coupling along with the single-mode propagation of the fiber taper. It consists in a prism shaped crystal with a waveguide inscribed inside it. The waveguide is self-inscribed in-situ by beam self-trapping to allow an optimum coupling to a given resonator.
We report on the design and fabrication of a new type of microtoroid high-Q silica resonators monolithically coupled to on-chip silicon nanowire waveguides. In order to enable monolithic waveguide coupling, the microtoroid geometry is inverted such that the resonator is formed by thermal reflow at the circumference of a hole etched in a suspended SiO2 membrane. This configuration is shown to be conducive to integration with a fully functional Silicon Photonics technology platform.
A method to realize effective magnetic fields for photons in square lattices of coupled optical waveguides or resonators is suggested, which is inspired by an optical analogue of photon-assisted tunneling of atom optics. It is shown that an artificial magnetic field can be achieved by application of an index gradient and periodic lumped phase shifts or modulation of the propagation constants/resonances, without the need to modulate the coupling strength.
The design and experimental demonstration of a large-area, ultra-high-Q-factor and single-mode operation silicon ring resonator based on a strip silicon photonic waveguide are presented, which is suitable for photon gyroscopic application. Based on these designs, simulation results show that the resonance depth is 0.9979 while the resonator is in an undercoupled state with the coupling length L=2um and coupling gap d=0.2um. For the fabricated resonator, the ultrahigh Q factor of 1.54*106 is experimentally demonstrated, with the free spectrum range (FSR) of 0.036nm and the resonance depth is 0.…
We demonstrate the generation of quantum-correlated photon pairs from a Si photonic-crystal coupled-resonator optical waveguide. A slow-light supermode realized by the collective resonance of high-Q and small-mode-volume photonic-crystal cavities successfully enhanced the efficiency of the spontaneous four-wave mixing process. The generation rate of photon pairs was improved by two orders of magnitude compared with that of a photonic-crystal line defect waveguide without a slow-light effect.
Large-scale entanglement of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond will require integration of NV centers with optical networks. Toward this goal, we present the fabrication of single-crystalline gallium phosphide (GaP) resonator-waveguide coupled structures on diamond. We demonstrate coupling between 1 μm diameter GaP disk resonators and waveguides with a loaded Q factor of 3,800, and evaluate their potential for efficient photon collection if integrated with single photon emitters. This work opens a path toward scalable NV entanglement in the hybrid GaP/diamond platform, with the potential…
