Mirror-induced reflection in the frequency domain

Creators: Hu, Yaowen; Yu, Mengjie; Sinclair, Neil; Zhu, Di; Cheng, Rebecca; Wang, Cheng; Lončar, Marko

Abstract

Mirrors are ubiquitous in optics and are used to control the propagation of optical signals in space. Here we propose and demonstrate frequency domain mirrors that provide reflections of the optical energy in a frequency synthetic dimension, using electro-optic modulation. First, we theoretically explore the concept of frequency mirrors with the investigation of propagation loss, and reflectivity in the frequency domain. Next, we explore the mirror formed through polarization mode-splitting in a thin-film lithium niobate micro-resonator. By exciting the Bloch waves of the synthetic frequency crystal with different wave vectors, we show various states formed by the interference between forward propagating and reflected waves. Finally, we expand on this idea, and generate tunable frequency mirrors as well as demonstrate trapped states formed by these mirrors using coupled lithium niobate micro-resonators. The ability to control the flow of light in the frequency domain could enable a wide range of applications, including the study of random walks, boson sampling, frequency comb sources, optical computation, and topological photonics. Furthermore, demonstration of optical elements such as cavities, lasers, and photonic crystals in the frequency domain, may be possible.

Additional Information

© The Author(s) 2022. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. This work is supported by ARO W911NF2010248 (Y.H.), NSF QuIC TAQS OMA-2137723 (Y.H.), DARPA LUMOS HR0011-20-C-0137 (M.Y., R.C., and M.L.), AFRL Quantum Accelerator FA9550-21-1-0056 (N.S.), ONR N00014-22-C-1041 (M.Y. and R.C.), NASA 80NSSC21C0583 (M.Y. and R.C.), NIH 5R21EY031895-02 (M.L.), Harvard Quantum Initiative (D.Z.), Research Grants Council, University Grants Committee (CityU 11212721) (C.W.). N.S. acknowledges support from the AQT Intelligent Quantum Networks and Technologies (INQNET) research program. Author contributions. Y.H. conceived the idea, developed the theory, performed the simulation of frequency mirrors. M.Y. performed the dispersion simulations and carried out the measurement of the polarization mirrors. M.Y. and Y.H. measured the coupled-resonator mirrors. Y.H. and R.C. fabricated the device. Y.H. wrote the manuscript with contributions from all authors. N.S., D.Z., and C.W. helped with the project. M.L. supervised the project. Data availability. The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding authors on reasonable request. Competing interests. M.L. are involved in developing lithium niobate technologies at HyperLight Corporation. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

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