No Arabic abstract
Conventional nano-photonic schemes minimise multiple scattering to realise a miniaturised version of beam-splitters, interferometers and optical cavities for light propagation and lasing. Here instead, we introduce a nanophotonic network built from multiple paths and interference, to control and enhance light-matter interaction via light localisation. The network is built from a mesh of subwavelength waveguides, and can sustain localised modes and mirror-less light trapping stemming from interference over hundreds of nodes. With optical gain, these modes can easily lase, reaching $sim$100 pm linewidths. We introduce a graph solution to the Maxwells equation which describes light on the network, and predicts lasing action. In this framework, the network optical modes can be designed via the network connectivity and topology, and lasing can be tailored and enhanced by the network shape. Nanophotonic networks pave the way for new laser device architectures, which can be used for sensitive biosensing and on-chip optical information processing.
Nanophotonic entangled-photon sources are a critical building block of chip-scale quantum photonic architecture and have seen significant development over the past two decades. These sources generate photon pairs that typically span over a narrow frequency bandwidth. Generating entanglement over a wide spectral region has proven to be useful in a wide variety of applications including quantum metrology, spectroscopy and sensing, and optical communication. However, generation of broadband photon pairs with temporal coherence approaching an optical cycle on a chip is yet to be seen. Here we demonstrate generation of ultra-broadband entangled photons using spontaneous parametric down-conversion in a periodically-poled lithium niobate nanophotonic waveguide. We employ dispersion engineering to achieve a bandwidth of 100 THz (1.2 - 2 $mu$m), at a high efficiency of 13 GHz/mW. The photons show strong temporal correlations and purity with the coincidence-to-accidental ratio exceeding $10^5$ and $>$ 98% two-photon interference visibility. These properties together with the piezo-electric and electro-optic control and reconfigurability, make thin-film lithium niobate an excellent platform for a controllable entanglement source for quantum communication and computing, and open a path towards femtosecond metrology and spectroscopy with non-classical light on a nanophotonic chip.
Photonic molecules are composed of two or more optical resonators, arranged such that some of the modes of each resonator are coupled to those of the other. Such structures have been used for emulating the behaviour of two-level systems, lasing, and on-demand optical storage and retrieval. Coupled resonators have also been used for dispersion engineering of integrated devices, enhancing their performance for nonlinear optical applications. Delicate engineering of such integrated nonlinear structures is required for developing scalable sources of non-classical light to be deployed in quantum information processing systems. In this work, we demonstrate a photonic molecule composed of two coupled microring resonators on an integrated nanophotonic chip, designed to generate strongly squeezed light uncontaminated by noise from unwanted parasitic nonlinear processes. By tuning the photonic molecule to selectively couple and thus hybridize only the modes involved in the unwanted processes, suppression of parasitic parametric fluorescence is accomplished. This strategy enables the use of microring resonators for the efficient generation of degenerate squeezed light: without it, simple single-resonator structures cannot avoid contamination from nonlinear noise without significantly compromising pump power efficiency, and are thus limited to generating only weak degenerate squeezing. We use this device to generate 8(1) dB of broadband degenerate squeezed light on-chip, with 1.65(1) dB directly measured, which is the largest amount of squeezing yet reported from any nanophotonic source.
Atmospheric turbulence causes fluctuations in the local refractive index of air that accumulatively disturb a waves phase and amplitude distribution as it propagates. This impairs the effective range of laser weapons as well as the performance of free space optical (FSO) communication systems. Adaptive optics (AO) can be applied to effectively correct wavefront distortions in weak turbulence situations. However, in strong or deep turbulence, where scintillation and beam breakup are common phenomena, traditional wavefront sensing techniques such as the use of Shack-Hartmann sensors lead to incorrect results. Consequently, the performance of AO systems will be greatly compromised. We propose a new approach that can determine the major phase distortions in a beam instantaneously and guide an AO device to compensate for the phase distortion in a few iterations. In our approach, we use a plenoptic wavefront sensor to image the distorted beam into its 4D phase space. A fast reconstruction algorithm based on graph theory is applied to recognize the phase distortion of a laser beam and command the AO device to perform phase compensation. As a result, we show in our experiments that an arbitrary phase distortion with peak to peak value up to 22{pi} can be corrected within a few iteration steps. Scintillation and branch point problems are smartly avoided by the plenoptic sensor and its fast reconstruction algorithm. In this article, we will demonstrate the function of the plenoptic sensor, the fast reconstruction algorithm as well as the beam correction improvements when our approach is applied to an AO system.
Random lasers use radiative gain and multiple scatterers in disordered media to generate light amplification. In this study, we demonstrate a random laser based on diamond nanoneedles that act as scatterers in combination with fluorescent dye molecules that serve as a gain medium. Random lasers realized using diamond possess high spectral radiance with angle-free emission and thresholds of 0.16 mJ. The emission dependence on the pillar diameter and density is investigated, and optimum lasing conditions are measured for pillars with spacing and density of 336 nm and ~ 2.9x10^10 cm-2. Our results expand the application space of diamond as a material platform for practical, compact photonic devices and sensing applications.
The need for solving optimization problems is prevalent in a wide range of physical applications, including neuroscience, network design, biological systems, socio-economics, and chemical reactions. Many of these are classified as non-deterministic polynomial-time (NP) hard and thus become intractable to solve as the system scales to a large number of elements. Recent research advances in photonics have sparked interest in using a network of coupled degenerate optical parametric oscillators (DOPOs) to effectively find the ground state of the Ising Hamiltonian, which can be used to solve other combinatorial optimization problems through polynomial-time mapping. Here, using the nanophotonic silicon-nitride platform, we propose a network of on-chip spatial-multiplexed DOPOs for the realization of a photonic coherent Ising machine. We demonstrate the generation and coupling of two microresonator-based DOPOs on a single chip. Through a reconfigurable phase link, we achieve both in-phase and out-of-phase operation, which can be deterministically achieved at a fast regeneration speed of 400 kHz with a large phase tolerance. Our work provides the critical building blocks towards the realization of a chip-scale photonic Ising machine.