We present a technique to improve the slow-light performance of a side-coupled spaced sequence of resonators (SCISSOR) combined with a stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) gain medium in optical fiber. We evaluate device performance of SCISSOR-only and SCISSOR + SBS systems for different numbers of cascaded resonators from 1 to 70 using two different data fidelity metrics including eye-opening and mutual information. A practical system design is demonstrated by analyzing its performance in terms of fractional delay, power transmission, and data fidelity. We observe that the results from the two metrics are in good agreement. Based on system optimization under practical resource and fidelity constraints, the SCISSOR consisting of 70 cascaded resonators provides a fractional delay of 8 with 22 dB attenuation at a signal bit rate of 10 Gbps. The combined optimal SCISSOR (with 70 resonators) + SBS system provides a improved fractional delay up to 17 with unit power transmission under the same constraints.
We report the observation of stimulated Brillouin scattering and lasing at 1550~nm in barium fluoride (BaF$_2$) crystal. Brillouin lasing was achieved with ultra-high quality ($Q$) factor monolithic whispering gallery mode (WGM) mm-size disk resonators. Overmoded resonators were specifically used to provide cavity resonances for both the pump and all Brillouin Stokes waves. Single and multiple Brillouin Stokes radiations with frequency shift ranging from $8.2$ GHz up to $49$ GHz have been generated through cascaded Brillouin lasing. BaF$_2$ resonator-based Brillouin lasing can find potential a…
We report the first observation of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) with Brillouin lasing, and Brillouin-coupled four-wave-mixing (FWM) in an ultra-high-Q silica microbottle resonator. The Brillouin lasing was observed at the frequency of $Ω_B=2π\times10.4$ GHz with a threshold power of $0.45$ mW. Coupling between Brillouin and FWM was observed in both backward and forward scattering directions with separations of $2Ω_B$. At a pump power of $10$ mW, FWM spacing reached to 7th and 9th order anti-Stokes and Stokes, respectively.
We propose a method for generating cascaded forward Brillouin scattering (CFBS), based on a counter-propagated pump-probe technique, utilizing backward stimulated Brillouin scattering as its seed. The CFBS, induced by forward stimulated Brillouin scattering (FSBS), is generated via the energy transfer from the probe light to other acoustic resonance frequencies. Experimental results for the CFBS generated in a 390-m-long highly nonlinear fiber indicate that it has a high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and that the center frequencies of its acoustic resonance peaks agree with theoretical values. T…
Stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) has been demonstrated in silicon waveguides in recent years. However, due to the weak interaction between photons and acoustic phonons in these waveguides, long interaction length is typically necessary. Here, we experimentally show that forward stimulated Brillouin scattering in a short interaction length of a 20 um radius silicon microring resonator could give 1.2 dB peak gain at only 10mW coupled pump power. The experimental results demonstrate that both optical and acoustic modes can have efficient interaction in a short interaction length. The observe…
Cascaded stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) is a complex nonlinear optical process that results in the generation of several optical waves that are frequency shifted by an acoustic resonance frequency. Four-wave mixing (FWM) between these Brillouin shifted optical waves can create an equally spaced optical frequency comb with a stable spectral phase, i.e. a Brillouin frequency comb (BFC). Here, we investigate phase-locking of the spectral components of BFCs, considering FWM interactions arising from the Kerr-nonlinearity as well as from coupling by the acoustic field. Deriving for the first…
We demonstrate an ultralow-noise microrod-resonator based laser that oscillates on the gain supplied by the stimulated Brillouin scattering optical nonlinearity. Microresonator Brillouin lasers are known to offer an outstanding frequency noise floor, which is limited by fundamental thermal fluctuations. Here, we show experimental evidence that thermal effects also dominate the close-to-carrier frequency fluctuations. The 6-mm diameter microrod resonator used in our experiments has a large optical mode area of ~100 μm$^2$, and hence its 10 ms thermal time constant filters the close-to-carrier o…
Storing and delaying optical signals plays a crucial role in data centers, phased array antennas, communication and future computing architectures. Here, we show a delay scheme based on cascaded Brillouin light storage, that achieves multi-stage delay at arbitrary positions within a photonic integrated circuit. Importantly these multiple resonant transfers between the optical and acoustic domain are controlled solely via external optical control pulses, allowing cascading of the delay without the need of aligning multiple structural resonances along the optical circuit.
We introduce a monolithic Brillouin generator based on a semiconductor micropillar cavity embedding a high frequency nanoacoustic resonator operating in the hundreds of GHz range. The concept of two nested resonators allows an independent design of the ultrahigh frequency Brillouin spectrum and of the optical device. We develop an optical free-space technique to characterize spontaneous Brillouin scattering in this monolithic device and propose a measurement protocol that maximizes the Brillouin generation efficiency in the presence of optically induced thermal effects. The compact and versati…
We present a novel approach to cascaded stimulated Brillouin scattering and frequency comb generation in which the multitude of interacting pump, Stokes, and anti-Stokes optical fields are described by a single forward wave and a single backward wave at a single carrier frequency. The envelopes of these two waves are modulated through coupling to a single acoustic oscillation and through four-wave mixing. Starting from a single pump field, we observe the emergence of a comb of frequencies as the intensity is increased. The set of three differential equations derived here are sufficient to desc…
Impact of Stimulated Brillouin Scattering on Modulation Instability in Fiber Fabry-Perot Resonators
Laboratoire Physique des Lasers, Atomes et Molécules, UMR No. 8523, CNRS, University of Lille（里尔大学）；Service OPERA-Photonique, Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB)（布鲁塞尔自由大学）
Cascaded Brillouin scattering is increasingly becoming of interest in many areas of pho- tonics (e.g. see [1] and [2]) and has been studied experimentally by many groups. In gain assisted experiments for example up to nearly 800 distinct lines have been observed[3] while in passive cavities, mode locking of a few Brillouin lines has recently been demonstrated[4]. We show that although each pair of lines interact through the creation of an acoustic phonon the resulting acoustic field nevertheless can be written as the sum of only two waves (a forward and backward propagating wave). This new ana…
Noncontact Brillouin spectroscopy is a purely optical and label-free method to retrieve fundamental material viscoelastic properties. Recently, the extension to a three-dimensional imaging modality has paved the way to novel exciting opportunities in the biomedical field, yet the detection of the Brillouin spectrum remains challenging as a consequence of the dominant elastic background light that typically overwhelms the inelastic Brillouin peaks. In this Letter, we demonstrate a fully integrated and ultra-compact Brillouin notch filter based on an optical ring resonator fabricated on a silico…
Inelastic scattering processes such as Brillouin scattering can often function in cascaded regimes and this is likely to occur in certain integrated opto-acoustic devices. We develop a Hamiltonian formalism for cascaded Brillouin scattering valid for both quantum and classical regimes. By regarding Brillouin scattering as the interaction of a single acoustic envelope and a single optical envelope that covers all Stokes and anti-Stokes orders, we obtain a compact model that is well suited for numerical implementation, extension to include other optical nonlinearities or short pulses, and applic…
We have developed a conceptual design for an Active Fast Light Fiber Optic Sensor (AFLIFOS) that can perform simultaneously or separately as a gyroscope (differential mode effect) and a sensor for acceleration, strain, and other common mode effects. Two Brillouin lasers in opposite directions and separated in frequency by several free spectral ranges are used for this sensor. By coupling two auxiliary resonators to the primary fiber resonator, we produce superluminal effects for two laser modes. We develop a detailed theoretical model for optimizing the design of the AFLIFOS, and show that the…
Optical resonators enable the generation, manipulation, and storage of electromagnetic waves. They are widely used in technology and fundamental research, in telecommunications, lasers and nonlinear optics, ultra-sensitive measurements in cavity optomechanics, and the study of light-matter interactions in the context of cavity QED. The physics underlying their operation is determined by the constructive interference of electromagnetic waves at specific frequencies, giving rise to the resonance spectrum. This mechanism causes the limitations and trade-offs of resonator design, such as the diffi…
Due to their high circulating intensities, ultra-high quality factor dielectric whispering-gallery mode resonators have enabled the development of low threshold Raman microlasers. Subsequently, other Raman-related phenomena, such as cascaded stimulated Raman scattering (CSRS) and stimulated anti-Stokes Raman scattering (SARS), were observed. While low threshold frequency conversion and generation have clear applications, CSRS and SARS have been limited by the low Raman gain. In this work, the surface of a silica resonator is modified with an organic monolayer, increasing the Raman gain. Up to …
Photonically integrated resonators are promising as a platform for enabling ultranarrow linewidth lasers in a compact form factor. Owing to their small size, these integrated resonators suffer from thermal noise that limits the frequency stability of the optical mode to ~100 kHz. Here, we demonstrate an integrated stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) laser based on a large mode-volume annulus resonator that realizes an ultranarrow thermal-noise-limited linewidth of 270 Hz. In practice, yet narrower linewidths are required before integrated lasers can be truly useful for applications such as o…
Brillouin systems operating in the quantum regime have recently been identified as a valuable tool for quantum information technologies and fundamental science. However, reaching the quantum regime is extraordinarily challenging, owing to the stringent requirements of combining low thermal occupation with low optical and mechanical dissipation, and large coherent phonon-photon interactions. Here, we propose an on-chip liquid based Brillouin system that is predicted to exhibit ultra-high coherent phonon-photon coupling with exceptionally low acoustic dissipation. The system is comprised of a si…
Brillouin Scattering Selection Rules in Polarization-Sensitive Photonic Resonators
Université Paris-Saclay（巴黎萨克雷大学）；CNRS, Centre de Nanosciences et de Nanotechnologies（法国国家科学研究中心，纳米科学中心）；Quandela SAS（Quandela公司）；Université Paris-Cité（巴黎西岱大学）；Institute of Physics, Carl von Ossietzky University（卡尔·冯·奥西茨基大学物理研究所）
Cascade Brilloiun scattering on short-lived phonons for frequency comb generation
Moscow Center for Advanced Studies（莫斯科高等研究中心）；Dukhov Research Institute of Automatics (VNIIA)（杜霍夫自动仪器科学研究所以）；Institute for Theoretical and Applied Electromagnetics（理论与应用电磁学研究所）
We formulate a generic concept of engineering optical modes and mechanical resonances in a pair of optically-coupled light-guiding membranes for achieving cascaded light scattering to multiple Stokes and anti-Stokes orders. By utilizing the light pressure exerted on the webs and their induced flexural vibrations, featuring flat phonon dispersion curve with a non-zero cut-off frequency, we show how to realize exact phase-matching between multiple successive optical side-bands. We predict continuous-wave generation of frequency combs for fundamental and high-order optical modes mediated via back…
Bulk acoustic resonators support robust, long-lived mechanical modes, capable of coupling to various quantum systems. In separate works, such devices have achieved strong coupling to both superconducting qubits, via piezoelectricity, and optical cavities, via Brillouin interactions. In this work, we present a novel hybrid microwave/optical platform capable of coupling to bulk acoustic waves through cavity-enhanced piezoelectric and photoelastic interactions. The modular, tunable system achieves fully resonant and well-mode-matched interactions between a 3D microwave cavity, a high-frequency bu…
Ultra-narrow optical spectral features resulting from highly dispersive light-matter interactions are essential for a broad range of applications such as spectroscopy, slow-light, and high-precision sensing. Features approaching sub-MHz, or equivalently, Q-factors approaching ~1 billion and beyond, are challenging to obtain in solid-state systems, ultimately limited by loss. We present a novel approach to achieve tunable sub-MHz spectral features, at room temperature, without resonators. We exploit gain-enhanced polarization pulling in a twisted birefringent medium where polarization eigenmode…
Light carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) has been shown to be of use in a disparate range of fields ranging from astronomy to optical trapping, and as a promising new dimension for multiplexing signals in optical communications and data storage. A challenge to many of these applications is a reliable and dynamic method that sorts incident OAM states without altering them. Here we report a wavelength-independent technique capable of dynamically filtering individual OAM states based on the resonant transmission of a tunable optical cavity. The cavity length is piezo-controlled to facilitate…
Ultrastable lasers serve as the backbone for some of the most advanced scientific experiments today and enable the ability to perform atomic spectroscopy and laser interferometry at the highest levels of precision possible. With the recent and increasing interest in applying these systems outside of the laboratory, it remains an open question as how to realize a laser source that can reach the extraordinary levels of narrow linewidth required and yet still remain sufficiently compact and portable for field use. Critical to the development of this ideal laser source is the necessity for the las…
An enhancement in Brillouin light scattering of optical photons with magnons is demonstrated in magneto-optical whispering gallery mode resonators tuned to a triple resonance point. This occurs when both the input and output optical modes are resonant with those of the whispering gallery resonator, with a separation given by the ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) frequency. The identification and excitation of specific optical modes allows us to gain a clear understanding of the mode-matching conditions. A selection rule due to wavevector matching leads to an intrinsic single-sideband excitation. S…
Bulk acoustic wave (BAW) resonators are attractive as intermediaries in a microwave-to-optical transducer, due to their long coherence times and controllable coupling to optical photons and superconducting qubits. However, for an optomechanical transducer to operate without detrimental added noise, the mechanical modes must be in the quantum ground state. This has proven challenging in recent demonstrations of transduction based on other types of mechanical resonators, where absorption of laser light caused heating of the phonon modes. In this work, we demonstrate ground state operation of a B…
A range of unique capabilities in optical and microwave signal processing have been demonstrated using stimulated Brillouin scattering. The desire to harness Brillouin scattering in mass manufacturable integrated circuits has led to a focus on silicon-based material platforms. Remarkable progress in silicon-based Brillouin waveguides has been made, but results have been hindered by nonlinear losses present at telecommunications wavelengths. Here, we report a new approach to surpass this issue through the integration of a high Brillouin gain material, As2S3, onto a silicon chip. We fabricated a…
We study a re-configurable nonreciprocal fiber ring cavity setup to generate tunable optical frequency combs. Coherent combs can be obtained by finely exploiting bi-chromatic Brillouin lasing and cascaded four-wave mixing in the nonlinear fiber cavity. We introduce a numerical model of the cavity system, which is validated by comparisons with experiments. Our work shows the importance of the mode pulling effect, controlled by the pump laser detuning, in setting the dynamics of the comb. This effect along with the impact of multimode lasing had been overlooked in previous fiber experiments. We …
We report a broadband RF channelizer based on an integrated optical frequency Kerr micro-comb source, with an RF channelizing bandwidth of 90 GHz, a high RF spectral slice resolution of 1.04 GHz, and experimentally verify the RF performance up to 19 GHz. This approach to realizing RF channelizers offers reduced complexity, size, and potential cost for a wide range of applications to microwave signal detection.
Strong acousto-optic interaction in silicon-based waveguides generally requires releasing of the silicon core to avoid mechanical leakage into the underlying silica substrate. This complicates fabrication, limits thermalization, reduces the mechanical robustness and hinders large area optomechanical devices on a single chip. Here, we overcome this limitation by employing vertical photonic-phononic engineering. Specifically, the insertion of a thick silicon nitride layer between the silicon guiding core and the silica substrate contributes to reduce GHz-frequencies phonon leakage enabling large…
We demonstrate a continuously RF tunable orthogonally polarized optical single sideband (OP-OSSB) generator based on dual cascaded micro-ring resonators. By splitting the input double sideband signal into an orthogonally polarized carrier and lower sideband via TE- and TM-polarized MRRs, an OP-OSSB signal is generated. A large tuning range of the optical carrier to sideband ratio of up to 57.3 dB is achieved by adjusting the polarization angle of the input light. The operation RF frequency of the OP-OSSB generator can be continuously tuned with a 21.4 GHz range via independent thermal control …
Optomechanical systems couple an electromagnetic cavity to a mechanical resonator which is typically formed from a solid object. The range of phenomena accessible to these systems depends on the properties of the mechanical resonator and on the manner in which it couples to the cavity fields. In both respects, a mechanical resonator formed from superfluid liquid helium offers several appealing features: low electromagnetic absorption, high thermal conductivity, vanishing viscosity, well-understood mechanical loss, and in situ alignment with cryogenic cavities. In addition, it offers degrees of…
Brillouin scattering is not usually considered as a mechanism that can cause cooling of a material due to the thermodynamic dominance of Stokes scattering in most practical systems. However, it has been shown in experiments on resonators that net phonon annihilation through anti-Stokes Brillouin scattering can be enabled by means of a suitable set of optical and acoustic states. The cooling of traveling phonons in a linear waveguide, on the other hand, could lead to the exciting future prospect of manipulating unidirectional phonon fluxes and even the nonreciprocal transport of quantum informa…
The ability to amplify light within silicon waveguides is central to the development of high-performance silicon photonic device technologies. To this end, the large optical nonlinearities made possible through stimulated Brillouin scattering offer a promising avenue for power-efficient all-silicon amplifiers, with recent demonstrations producing several dB of net amplification. However, scaling the degree of amplification to technologically compelling levels (>10 dB), necessary for everything from filtering to small signal detection, remains an important goal. Here, we significantly enhance t…
Stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) in low-power and compact microresonators has created a new field in cavity nonlinear photonics due to the marriage between acoustic and optical signal processing. Considering the fundamental differences between backward SBS and forward SBS processes, it is challenging to observe the coexistence of both processes in the same microresonator, as well as the photon noise suppression for the forward stimulated Brillouin laser (FSBL). In this paper, we demonstrate the first 20-dB-noise-squeezed FSBL generation excited by the coexisting backward SBL (BSBL) in an …
We demonstrate that the implementation of phase-locked loop forbidding multimode operation of a long Brillouin resonator also leads to a dramatic reduction of the optical phase noise of the pump itself. In the case of a continuous Er,Yb:glass laser, a reduction by more than 90 dB at 100 Hz of the carrier is observed. This yields an optical linewidth estimated narrower than 2 Hz for the pump laser. The method being independent of the laser wavelength, it can be applied to almost any laser.
Novel physical concepts that originate from quantum mechanics, such as non-Hermitian systems (dealing mostly with PT and anti-PT symmetry) and bound states in the continuum (BICs), have attracted great interest in the optics and photonics community. To date, BICs and anti-PT symmetry seem to be two independent topics. Here, we for the first time propose a parallel cascaded-resonator system to achieve BICs and anti-PT symmetry simultaneously. We found that the requirements for the Fabry-Pérot BIC and anti-PT symmetry can both be satisfied when the phase shift between any two adjacent resonators…
