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arXiv:1908.03280 · Physical Review Letters

Transmission Nonreciprocity in a Mutually Coupled Circulating Structure

Bing He, Liu Shuan Yang, Xiaoshun Jiang, Min Xiao

Published May 18, 2018• 71 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Breaking Lorentz reciprocity was believed to be a prerequisite for nonreciprocal transmissions of light fields, so the possibility of nonreciprocity by linear optical systems was mostly ignored. We put forward a structure of three mutually coupled microcavities or optical fiber rings to realize optical nonreciprocity. Although its couplings with the fields from two different input ports are constantly equal, such system transmits them nonreciprocally either under the saturation of an optical gain in one of the cavities or with the asymmetric couplings of the circulating fields in different cavities. The structure made up of optical fiber rings can perform nonreciprocal transmissions as a time-independent linear system without breaking Lorentz reciprocity. Optical isolation for inputs simultaneously from two different ports and even approximate optical isolator operations are implementable with the structure.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.120.203904

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Breaking Lorentz reciprocity was believed to be a prerequisite for nonreciprocal transmissions of light fields, so the possibility of nonreciprocity by linear optical systems was mostly ignored. We put forward a structure of three mutually coupled microcavities or optical fiber rings to realize optical nonreciprocity. Although its couplings with the fields from two different input ports are constantly equal, such system transmits them nonreciprocally either under the saturation of an optical gain in one of the cavities or with the asymmetric couplings of the circulating fields in different cavities. The structure made up of optical fiber rings can perform nonreciprocal transmissions as a time-independent linear system without breaking Lorentz reciprocity. Optical isolation for inputs simultaneously from two different ports and even approximate optical isolator operations are implementable with the structure.
Abstract Optical transmission nonreciprocity as a widely investigated phenomenon is essential to various applications. Many sophisticated mechanisms have been proposed and tested for achieving the optical nonreciprocity on integrated scale, but the technical barriers still exist to their practical implementation. To have an ultra-high transmission nonreciprocity, we consider a simple physical mechanism of optical gain saturation applied to a structure of three mutually coupled cavities or fiber rings. The gain saturation processes in two of its components creates a significantly enhanced optical nonreciprocity that satisfies the requirements for the realistic applications. The structure enjoys two advantages of its wide working bandwidth and the flexibility in choosing its components. Moreover, it is possible to apply the structure to a faithful and non-reciprocal transmission of broadband pulse signals. The structure may considerably relax the constraints on the integrated photonic circuits based on the current technology.
Optical nonreciprocity is an essential property for a wide range of applications, such as building nonreciprocal optical devices that include isolators and circulators. The realization of optical nonreciprocity relies on breaking the symmetry associated with Lorentz reciprocity, which typically requires stringent conditions such as introducing a strong magnetic field or a high-finesse cavity with nonreciprocal coupling geometry. Here we discover that the collision effect of thermal atoms, which is undesirable for most studies, can induce broadband optical nonreciprocity. By exploiting the thermal atomic collision, we experimentally observe magnet-free and cavity-free optical nonreciprocity, which possesses a high isolation ratio, ultrabroad bandwidth, and low insertion loss simultaneously. The maximum isolation ratio is close to 40 dB, while the insertion loss is less than 1 dB. The bandwidth for an isolation ratio exceeding 20 dB is over 1.2 GHz, which is 2 orders of magnitude broader than typical resonance-enhanced optical isolators. Our work paves the way for the realization of high-performance optical nonreciprocal devices and provides opportunities for applications in integrated optics and quantum networks.
In this paper, the optical nonreciprocal phenomena in double optomechanical systems with quadratic coupling are studied. Our model belongs to an optomechanical system in which three coupling modes coexist, that is, the two cavity fields are coupled with the mechanical oscillator at the same time and the couplings are in the form of quadratic interactions. In addition, there is a linear coupling mode between the two cavity fields. In the entire system, each cavity field is effectively coupled by a control field and a probe field simultaneously. The expression of the transmission coefficient of the probe field is obtained by solving the dynamic evolution equation satisfied by the system. Using numerical analysis, we analyze the change in transmission coefficient of the probe field under the conditions of different physical parameters. The results show that we can realize optical nonreciprocal transmission in this system. Appropriate choices about physical parameters can achieve perfect nonreciprocity. Our theoretical scheme to realize optical nonreciprocal transmission in a double optomechanical system provides a theoretical basis for optical circulators, cyclic amplifiers and directional amplifiers.
A scheme for magnetic-free optical nonreciprocity in an ensemble of four-level cold atoms is proposed by exploiting the directional four-wave mixing effect. Using experimentally achievable parameters, the nonreciprocal optical responses of the system can be observed and the conversion on nonreciprocal transmission and nonreciprocal phase shift can be implemented. These nonreciprocal phenomena originate from the directional phase matching, which breaks the time-reversal symmetry and dynamic reciprocity of the cold atomic system. Moreover, by embedding the cold atoms into a Mach-Zehnder interferometer and choosing proper parameters, a two-port optical isolator with an isolation ratio of 79.70 dB and an insertion loss of 0.35 dB and a four-port optical circulator with a fidelity of 0.9985 and a photon survival probability of 0.9278 can be realized, which shows the high performance of isolation and circulation. The proposal may enable a new class of optically controllable cavity-free nonreciprocal devices in optical signal processing at the low light level.
Optical nonreciprocal devices are essential to quantum information processing and communication. We proposed a scheme for optical nonreciprocity via the nonlinear Jaynes–Cummings model in a gain cavity. In addition, the gain cavity is coupled to two fibers with different coupling strengths. In the scheme, the nonlinearity, which is induced by the interaction between a two-level quantum emitter and the cavity field, is enhanced by the cavity gain. Our calculations show that the nonlossy optical nonreciprocity is achievable with high isolation ratio in proper parameter range. Especially, the analytic method further shows the reciprocity broken by the combination of the asymmetric coupling and enhanced nonlinearity.
Optical non-reciprocity for weak light field is particularly important for chip-based photonic and quantum information process. By adopting the strong nonlinearity associated with a few atoms in a strongly coupled cavity QED system and an asymmetric cavity configuration, we experimentally demonstrate the nonreciprocal transmission between two counterpropagating light fields with extremely low power. The system can be further manipulated to realize a non-reciprocal cavity polariton. Such that an optical isolation exceeds 30dB on single-quanta level and non-reciprocal non-classical statistics with coherent probe lights can be obtained, manifesting the quantum nature of the non-reciprocal polaritons.