No Arabic abstract
In recent years we are witnessing a flourish in research aimed to facilitate alkali vapors in guided wave configurations. Owing to the significant reduction in device dimensions, the increase in density of states, the interaction with surfaces and primarily the high intensities carried along the structure, a rich world of light vapor interactions can be studied, and new functionalities, e.g. low power nonlinear light-matter interactions can be achieved. One immense remaining challenge is to study the effects of quantum coherence and shifts in such nano-scale waveguides, characterized by ultra-small mode areas and fast dynamics. Here, we construct a serpentine silicon-nitride wave guide, having atomic vapor as its cladding. The unprecedented mode volume of 5e-13 m^3 supported over a length of 17 mm is used to demonstrate efficient linear and non-linear spectroscopy. Fascinating and important phenomena such as van der Waals shifts, dynamical stark shifts, and coherent effects such as strong coupling (in the form of Autler Townes splitting) are all observed. The serpentine atomic cladding is a promising building block for a variety of light vapor experiments, as it offers a very small footprint, enables operation with relatively low density of atoms and extremely strong confinement of light and vapor. As such it may be used for important applications, such as all optical switching, frequency referencing, and magnetometry to name a few.
The third-order optical nonlinearity in optical waveguides has found applications in optical switching, optical wavelength conversion, optical frequency comb generation, and ultrafast optical signal processing. The development of an integrated waveguide platform with a high nonlinearity is therefore important for nonlinear integrated photonics. Here, we report the observation of an enhancement in the nonlinearity of an air-cladding silicon pedestal waveguide. We observe enhanced nonlinear spectral broadening compared to a conventional silicon-on-insulator waveguide. At the center wavelength of 1555 nm, the nonlinear-index coefficient of air-cladding silicon pedestal waveguide is measured to be about 5% larger than that of a conventional silicon-on-insulator waveguide. We observe enhanced spectral broadening from self-phase modulation of an optical pulse in the pedestal waveguide. The interaction of light with the confined acoustic phonons in the pedestal structure gives rise to a larger nonlinear-index coefficient. The experimental results agree well with the theoretical models.
We observe a strong polarization dependent optical loss of in-plane light propagation in silicon waveguide due to the presence of graphene. Both transverse-electric (TE) and transverse-magnetic (TM) modes are efficiently (~3 dB) coupled to the graphene on suspended membrane waveguides using an apodized focusing subwavelength grating. The TE mode has 7.7 dB less excess optical loss than the TM mode at 1.5 {mu}m for a 150 {mu}m long waveguide in good agreement with a theoretical model. All-optical modulation of light is demonstrated. There is also a large thermally induced change in waveguide effective index because of optical absorption in graphene.
Proposed all optical amplification scenario is based on the properties of light propagation in two coupled subwavelength metallic slab waveguides where for particular choice of waveguide parameters two propagating (symmetric) and non-propagating (antisymmetric) eigenmodes coexist. For such a setup incident beams realize boundary conditions for forming a stationary state as a superposition of mentioned eigenmodes. It is shown both analytically and numerically that amplification rate in this completely linear mechanism diverges for small signal values.
We review our recent work on tunable, ultrahigh quality factor whispering-gallery-mode bottle microresonators and highlight their applications in nonlinear optics and in quantum optics experiments. Our resonators combine ultra-high quality factors of up to Q = 3.6 times 10^8, a small mode volume, and near-lossless fiber coupling, with a simple and customizable mode structure enabling full tunability. We study, theoretically and experimentally, nonlinear all-optical switching via the Kerr effect when the resonator is operated in an add-drop configuration. This allows us to optically route a single-wavelength cw optical signal between two fiber ports with high efficiency. Finally, we report on progress towards strong coupling of single rubidium atoms to an ultra-high Q mode of an actively stabilized bottle microresonator.
A systematic numerical study of ultrafast nonlinear directional coupler performance based on soliton self-trapping in a novel type of dual-core optical fibre is presented. The considered highly nonlinear fibre structure is composed of a real, intentionally developed soft glass-pair with high refractive index contrast at the level of 0.4 in the near infrared. Nonlinear propagation of picojoule level femtosecond pulses was studied numerically with the aim to identify the best switching performance in input parameter space of 1400 - 1800 nm in terms of excitation wavelengths, and of 75 - 150 fs in terms of pulse width, respectively. For every combination of excitation wavelength and pulse width, the switching energies together with the optimal fibre length were determined and their relation to the input and switching parameters is discussed. The highest switching contrast of 46 dB in the time window of the ultrashort soliton was predicted at combination of 1500 nm excitation wavelength and 75 fs pulse width considering 43 mm fibre length. These results represent significant improvement both from point of view of switching contrast and switching energies, which are only at level of 20 pJ, in comparison to the previously published case of air-glass dual-core photonic crystal fibre. Moreover, the simpler fibre design without cladding microstructure together with the all-solid approach holds promise of improved dual-core symmetry and therefore offers high probability of the successful realization of a low power, compact and simple switching device.