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arXiv:1705.09113 · Physical Review Letters

Nonreciprocal Localization of Photons

Hamidreza Ramezani, Pankaj K. Jha, Yuan Wang, Xiang Zhang

Published Jan 24, 2018• 91 citations
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Abstract

We demonstrate that it is possible to localize photons nonreciprocally in a moving photonic lattice made by spatiotemporally modulating the atomic response, where the dispersion acquires a spectral Doppler shift with respect to the probe direction. A static defect placed in such a moving lattice produces a spatial localization of light in the band gap with a shifting frequency that depends on the direction of incident field with respect to the moving lattice. This phenomenon has an impact not only in photonics but also in broader areas such as condensed matter and acoustics, opening the doors for designing new devices such as compact isolators, circulators, nonreciprocal traps, sensors, unidirectional tunable filters, and possibly even a unidirectional laser.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.120.043901

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We demonstrate that it is possible to localize photons nonreciprocally in a moving photonic lattice made by spatiotemporally modulating the atomic response, where the dispersion acquires a spectral Doppler shift with respect to the probe direction. A static defect placed in such a moving lattice produces a spatial localization of light in the band gap with a shifting frequency that depends on the direction of incident field with respect to the moving lattice. This phenomenon has an impact not only in photonics but also in broader areas such as condensed matter and acoustics, opening the doors for designing new devices such as compact isolators, circulators, nonreciprocal traps, sensors, unidirectional tunable filters, and possibly even a unidirectional laser.
Magnetic-free nonreciprocal optical devices that prevent backscattering of signals are essential for optical information processing. The achieved nonreciprocal behaviors mostly rely on various optical dispersive effects, leading to dispersive modulations of the spatial beam profiles, such as broadening and discretization, of incident signals. Such deformation inevitably reduces the matching with subsequent functional components. Here, we experimentally demonstrate the nonreciprocal transverse localization of light in a moiré photonic lattice in atomic vapors. When the probe field co- or counter-propagates with the forward coupling field with a honeycomb moiré profile, the output pattern can exhibit localized or dispersive behavior. The nonreciprocal behaviors (in both beam size and transmitted intensity) are from the atomic thermal motion. A backward Gaussian coupling field is also introduced to modulate the size and intensity of the backward probe, which experiences dispersive propagation. The current work provides an approach to control the transverse beam profile in nonreciprocal transmission. The authors demonstrate nonreciprocal transverse localisation of light in a reconfigurable moiré photonic lattice within a rubidium atomic vapor under electromagnetic-induced transparency conditions. This shows selective control of localised or dispersive optical features.
We study the two-color nonreciprocal effects of transmission and reflection in cold atoms driven into the tripod configuration and confined in a moving optical lattice. Our numerical results show that a very high contrast of the forward-backward transmission up to around 92% (reflection up to around 85%) is observable near the sharp edges of two tunable photonic band gaps at lattice speeds of several meters per second. Such two-color optical nonreciprocity is attained in fact by breaking the time-reversal symmetry with asymmetric Doppler shifts and can be dynamically manipulated by varying the driving and coupling field detunings, the probe pulse length, the atomic lattice velocity, etc.
Based on the broken spatial symmetry, we propose a scheme for engineering a unidirectional photonic reflector using a one-dimensional atomic lattice with defective cells that have been specifically designed to be vacant. By trapping three-level atoms and driving them into the regime of electromagnetically induced transparency, and through the skillful design of the number and position of vacant cells in the lattice, numerical simulations demonstrate that a broad and high unidirectional reflection region can be realized within the EIT window. This proposed unidirectional reflector scheme provides a new platform for achieving optical nonreciprocity and has potential applications for designing optical circuits and devices of nonreciprocity at extremely low energy levels. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
In order to further investigate the non-reciprocity of light propagation in the defective atomic lattices, and due to its effective application in designing novel photonic devices, such as all-optical diodes and isolators, which are powerful tools for information processing and quantum simulation, we innovatively propose to use the Fibonacci sequence to modulate the arrangement of empty lattice cells that form a quasi periodic defective atomic lattices. In the electromagnetically induced transparency window, the probe light is almost not absorbed under the control of a strong coupling field (see Fig. 1). The numerical simulation indicates that a wide nonreciprocal reflection band can be achieved by modulating the number of filled lattice cells, Fibonacci sequence, the period number in a single quasi period (see Fig. 2). These results provide more degrees of freedom for regulating nonreciprocal reflection with wide bandwidth and high contrast, and have potential applications in quantum computing and information processing.
Summary form only given. Recent research is rapidly moving toward all-optical confinement of Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in optical traps. The optical trap provides an effective tool to manipulate the dynamics of BEC for practical purposes. In particular it opens the possibilities to study BEC in an optical lattice. In this work, we focus on studying the properties of propagation of a weak probe light through a BEC confined in an optical lattice. The key point in the topic is that the ground state of the lattice BEC acts as a periodic dielectric medium for the probe light propagating through it. We show that photonic, or rather polaritonic band gaps are created for probe light due to the spatial periodicity of the ground state of the lattice BEC. However being different from the ordinary periodic dielectric, the lattice BEC can experience elementary excitations which lead to a perturbative distortion of the periodicity of the lattice BEC. Such non-periodic perturbations are similar to lattice defects in solid state physics. Here they will produce defect states inside the photonic band gaps. By analyzing the elementary excitations of the lattice BEC, we study the frequency spectrum of photonic band gaps and defect states induced by such excitations in the lattice BEC. These photonic defect states may technically have the potential to be employed to acquire knowledge about the quantum degeneracy in an optical lattice.
We consider the quantum electrodynamics of an atom uniformly moving through a single spatially periodic field mode. The shape and periodicity of the field modulation can be designed by an appropriate choice of a defect in a periodic structure that possesses a forbidden spectral band (a ``photonic band gap''). This design of the periodic modulation can improve our control over the evolution and properties (e.g., photon statistics) of nonclassical ``Schr\"odinger-cat'' states of the field, generated by resonant interaction with the atom.