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arXiv:1302.7287 · Scientific Reports

Nonlinear optical effects of ultrahigh-Q silicon photonic nanocavities immersed in superfluid helium

Xiankai Sun, Xufeng Zhang, Carsten Schuck, Hong X. Tang

Published Mar 13, 2013• 33 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Photonic nanocavities are a key component in many applications because of their capability of trapping and storing photons and enhancing interactions of light with various functional materials and structures. The maximal number of photons that can be stored in silicon photonic cavities is limited by the free-carrier and thermo-optic effects at room temperature. To reduce such effects, we performed the first experimental study of optical nonlinearities in ultrahigh-Q silicon disk nanocavities at cryogenic temperatures in a superfluid helium environment. At elevated input power, the cavity transmission spectra exhibit distinct blue-shifted bistability behavior when temperature crosses the liquid helium lambda point. At even lower temperatures, the spectra restore to symmetric Lorentzian shapes. Under this condition, we obtain a large intracavity photon number of about 40,000, which is limited ultimately by the local helium phase transition. These new discoveries are explained by theoretical calculations and numerical simulations.

DOI
10.1038/srep01436

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Photonic nanocavities are a key component in many applications because of their capability of trapping and storing photons and enhancing interactions of light with various functional materials and structures. The maximal number of photons that can be stored in silicon photonic cavities is limited by the free-carrier and thermo-optic effects at room temperature. To reduce such effects, we performed the first experimental study of optical nonlinearities in ultrahigh-Q silicon disk nanocavities at cryogenic temperatures in a superfluid helium environment. At elevated input power, the cavity transmission spectra exhibit distinct blue-shifted bistability behavior when temperature crosses the liquid helium lambda point. At even lower temperatures, the spectra restore to symmetric Lorentzian shapes. Under this condition, we obtain a large intracavity photon number of about 40,000, which is limited ultimately by the local helium phase transition. These new discoveries are explained by theoretical calculations and numerical simulations.
This article overviews our recent studies of ultrahigh-Q and ultrasmall photonic-crystal cavities, and their applications to nonlinear optical processing and novel adiabatic control of light. First, we show our latest achievements of ultrahigh-Q photonic-crystal nanocavities, and present extreme slow-light demonstration. Next, we show all-optical bistable switching and memory operations based on enhanced optical nonlinearity in these nanocavities with extremely low power, and discuss their applicability for realizing chip-scale all-optical logic, such as flip-flop. Finally, we introduce adiabatic tuning of high-Q nanocavities, which leads to novel wavelength conversion and another type of optical memories.
Silica microspheres behave as efficient optical microresonators when small-volume whispering-gallery modes (WGMs) are used. We have realized a cryogenic set-up to work with microspheres immersed in a superfluid helium bath. Quality factors up to 109 have been obtained at 2 K. In this environment, we have been able to observe a dispersive bistable behavior of the WGM resonances, due to the weak intrinsic Kerr optical nonlinearity of silica, with a threshold power of 10 (mu) W only. This result opens the way to the realization of thresholdless microlaser, based on a rare-earth doped silica microsphere and to other Cavity-QED projects with microspheres at low temperatures.
The ability to control and manipulate light with light is crucial for optical information and communication technology. However, all-optical information processing is hindered by the absence of interactions between photons in linear materials. Nonlinear materials mediate effective photon-photon interactions, but require large light intensity. Optical resonators store and confine light for many optical cycles, which increases the interaction time and reduces the nonlinearity threshold. However, monolithic optical resonators have limited variability of the intra-cavity medium. Instead, a wide variety of materials can be easily integrated in tunable open-access microcavities, making them an ideal platform for exploring novel materials for nonlinear optics. In this thesis, we present experiments using coherently driven tunable open-access microcavities hosting either oil or a perovskite semiconductor. In Chapter 2 we demonstrate steady-state room-temperature superfluidity of photons in an oil-filled cavity, and reveal how the fluid dynamics are influenced by the nonlocality of the effective interactions mediated by the oil. Chapters 3 and 4 describe experiments using a halide perovskite semiconductor in an open-access microcavity in a closed-cycle cryostat. We demonstrate continuous-wave nonlinearity in the halide perovskite material through optical bistability, and reveal signatures of a phase transition in the temperature dependence of the nonlinearity strength. Next we investigate the emergence of irreversibility in the bistable switching of our perovskite cavity. Finally, we present in Chapter 5 experimental observations of fast nonlinearity-enabled oscillations in the light intensity, that occur despite the slowness of thermal nonlinearity of the oil.
We observe experimentally optical bistability enhanced through Fano interferences in high-Q localized silicon photonic crystal resonances (Q ~ 30,000 and modal volume ~ 0.98 cubic wavelengths). This phenomenon is analyzed through nonlinear coupled-mode formalism, including the interplay of chi(3) effects such as two-photon absorption and related free-carrier dynamics, and optical Kerr as well as thermal effects and linear losses. Our experimental and theoretical results demonstrate for the first time Fano-resonance based bistable states with switching thresholds of 185 micro-Watt and 4.5 fJ internally stored cavity energy (~ 540 fJ consumed energy) in silicon for scalable optical buffering and logic.