No Arabic abstract
Optical cavities are a cornerstone of photonics. They are indispensable in lasers, optical filters, optical combs and clocks, in quantum physics, and have enabled the detection of gravitational waves. Cavities transmit light only at discrete resonant frequencies, which are well-separated in micro-structures. Despite attempts at the construction of `white-light cavities, the benefits accrued upon optically interacting with a cavity -- such as resonant field buildup -- have remained confined to narrow linewidths. Here, we demonstrate achromatic optical transmission through a planar Fabry-Perot micro-cavity via angularly multiplexed phase-matching that exploits a bio-inspired grating configuration. By correlating each wavelength with an appropriate angle of incidence, a continuous spectrum resonates and the micro-cavity is rendered transparent. The locus of a single-order 0.7-nm-wide resonance is de-slanted in spectral-angular space to become a 60-nm-wide achromatic resonance spanning multiple cavity free-spectral-ranges. This approach severs the link between the resonance bandwidth and the cavity-photon lifetime, thereby promising resonant enhancement of linear and nonlinear optical effects over broad bandwidths in ultrathin devices.
Coherent perfect absorption (CPA) refers to interferometrically induced complete absorption of incident light by a partial absorber independently of its intrinsic absorption (which may be vanishingly small) or its thickness. CPA is typically realized in a resonant device, and thus cannot be achieved over a broad continuous spectrum, which thwarts its applicability to photodetectors and solar cells, for example. Here, we demonstrate broadband omni-resonant CPA by placing a thin weak absorber in a planar cavity and pre-conditioning the incident optical field by introducing judicious angular dispersion. We make use of monolayer graphene embedded in silica as the absorber and boost its optical absorption from ~1.6% to ~60% over a bandwidth of ~70 nm in the visible. Crucially, an analytical model demonstrates that placement of the graphene monolayer at a peak in the cavity standing-wave field is not necessary to achieve CPA, contrary to conventional wisdom.
Microring optical modulators are being explored extensively for energy-efficient photonic communication networks in future high-performance computing systems and microprocessors, because they can significantly reduce the power consumption of optical transmitters via the resonant circulation of light. However, resonant modulators have traditionally suffered from a trade-off between their power consumption and maximum operation bit rate, which were thought to depend oppositely upon the cavity linewidth. Here, we break this linewidth limitation using a silicon microring. By controlling the rate at which light enters and exits the microring, we demonstrate modulation free of the parasitic cavity linewidth limitations at up to 40 GHz, more than 6x the cavity linewidth. The device operated at 28 Gb/s using single-ended drive signals less than 1.5 V. The results show that high-Q resonant modulators can be designed to be simultaneously low-power and high-speed, features which are mutually incompatible in typical resonant modulators studied to date.
We propose a method to break the chiral symmetry of light in traveling wave resonators by coupling the optical modes to a lossy channel. Through the engineered dissipation, an indirect dissipative coupling between two oppositely propagating modes can be realized. Combining with reactive coupling, it can break the chiral symmetry of the resonator, allowing light propagating only in one direction. The chiral symmetry breaking is numerically verified by the simulation of an electromagnetic field in a micro-ring cavity, with proper refractive index distributions. This work provokes us to emphasize the dissipation engineering in photonics, and the generalized idea can also be applied to other systems.
The field of micro-cavity based frequency combs, or micro-combs[1,2], has recently witnessed many fundamental breakthroughs[3-19] enabled by the discovery of temporal cavity-solitons, self-localised waves sustained by a background of radiation usually containing 95% of the total power[20]. Simple methods for their efficient generation and control are currently researched to finally establish micro-combs as out-of-the-lab widespread tools[21]. Here we demonstrate micro-comb laser cavity-solitons, an intrinsically highly-efficient, background free class of solitary waves. Laser cavity-solitons have underpinned key breakthroughs in semiconductor lasers[22,23] and photonic memories[24-26]. By merging their properties with the physics of both micro-resonators[1,2] and multi-mode systems[27], we provide a new paradigm for the generation and control of self-localised pulses in micro-cavities. We demonstrate 50 nm wide soliton combs induced with average powers one order of magnitude lower than those typically required by state-of-the-art approaches[26]. Furthermore, we can tune the repetition-rate to well over a megahertz with no-active feedback.
Chi-3 micro resonators have enabled compact and portable frequency comb generation, but require sophisticated dispersion control. Here we demonstrate an alternative approach using a chi-2 sheet cavity, where the dispersion requirement is relaxed by cavity phase matching. 21.2 THz broadband comb generation is achieved with uniform line spacing of 133.0 GHz, despite a relatively large dispersion of 275.4 fs^2/mm around 1064nm. With 22.6 % high slope efficiency and 14.9 kW peak power handling, this chi-2 comb can be further stabilized for navigation, telecommunication, astronomy, and spectroscopy applications.