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Physical Review E

Hamiltonian formulation of coupled-mode theory in waveguiding structures

Philip Chak, Rajiv Iyer, James Stewart Aitchison, John E. Sipe

Published Jan 18, 2007• 11 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present a Hamiltonian formulation of coupled mode theory for scenarios in which the coupled modes are associated with different "parent structures," such as two nearby waveguides. The relativistic nature of the photon leads to the complication that not any set of orthonormal modes can be used as a basis if the associated amplitudes are to satisfy canonical commutation relations. This difficulty is circumvented by the introduction of "dressed parent modes," which are in fact seen to be the "coupled modes" of the system. While an exact solution of the linear problem within the restricted basis of interest formally must be found before these modes can be constructed, in practice they can be constructed directly from the modes of the parent structures. The approach can be applied to periodic parent structures, such as photonic crystal waveguiding structures, as well as to simpler waveguides. We illustrate the accuracy of the various approximations employed by studying two sample systems in detail. We derive the linear coupled mode equations, and show how the approach can be immediately generalized from the linear regime to treat problems in nonlinear quantum optics.

DOI
10.1103/physreve.75.016608

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We present a Hamiltonian formulation of coupled mode theory for scenarios in which the coupled modes are associated with different "parent structures," such as two nearby waveguides. The relativistic nature of the photon leads to the complication that not any set of orthonormal modes can be used as a basis if the associated amplitudes are to satisfy canonical commutation relations. This difficulty is circumvented by the introduction of "dressed parent modes," which are in fact seen to be the "coupled modes" of the system. While an exact solution of the linear problem within the restricted basis of interest formally must be found before these modes can be constructed, in practice they can be constructed directly from the modes of the parent structures. The approach can be applied to periodic parent structures, such as photonic crystal waveguiding structures, as well as to simpler waveguides. We illustrate the accuracy of the various approximations employed by studying two sample systems in detail. We derive the linear coupled mode equations, and show how the approach can be immediately generalized from the linear regime to treat problems in nonlinear quantum optics.
A quantum mechanical analysis of the guided light in integrated photonics waveguides is presented. The analysis is made starting from one-dimensional (1D) guided vector modes by taking into account the modal orthonormalization property on a cross section of an optical waveguide, the vector structure of the guided optical modes and the reversal-time symmetry in order to quantize the 1D vector modes and to derive the quantum momentum operator and the Heisenberg equations. The results provide a quantum-consistent formulation of the linear and nonlinear quantum light propagations as a function of forward and backward creation and annihilation operators in integrated photonics. As an illustration, an application to an integrated nonlinear directional coupler is given, that is, both the nonlinear momentum and the Heisenberg equations of the nonlinear coupler are derived.
In this work is presented a macroscopic quantum-mechanical analysis of quantum light progression in different kinds of integrated photonic waveguide structures with coupled modes, and therefore with validity, for instance, for integrated optical waveguides (conventional integrated optics), photonic crystal waveguides, nano-optical waveguides (plasmonic modes) and so on. The main goal of the work is to give a consistent and explicit derivation of the quantum Momentum operator, and therefore to calculate the corresponding Heisenberg's Equations. Quantum propagation of nonclassical light states are analyzed in different linear and nonlinear integrated devices.
We analyze the resonant linear and nonlinear transmission through a photonic crystal waveguide side-coupled to a Kerr-nonlinear photonic crystal resonator. First, we extend the standard coupled-mode theory analysis to photonic crystal structures and obtain explicit analytical expressions for the bistability thresholds and transmission coefficients which provide the basis for a detailed understanding of the possibilities associated with these structures. Next, we discuss limitations of standard coupled-mode theory and present an alternative analytical approach based on the effective discrete equations derived using a Green's function method. We find that the discrete nature of the photonic crystal waveguides allows a geometry-driven enhancement of nonlinear effects by shifting the resonator location relative to the waveguide, thus providing an additional control of resonant waveguide transmission and Fano resonances. We further demonstrate that this enhancement may result in the lowering of the bistability threshold and switching power of nonlinear devices by several orders of magnitude. Finally, we show that employing such enhancements is of paramount importance for the design of all-optical devices based on slow-light photonic crystal waveguides.
Recent advances are enabling quantum emitters to interact with photonic crystals, whose electromagnetic modes exhibit complex dispersion relations, spatial mode structure, and polarization textures. However, modeling light-matter behavior in these systems faces a persistent trade-off: electromagnetic approaches based on Maxwell-equation solvers provide realistic vectorial descriptions but are difficult to integrate with quantum many-body and non-perturbative methods, whereas simplified quantum-optical lattice models are tractable but typically rely on scalar and spatially independent light-matter couplings that miss essential features of these structured photonic environments. Here, we introduce a constructive framework to derive quantum-optical lattice descriptions that overcome this trade-off. Combining symmetry-constrained tight-binding constructions with numerically computed photonic band structures and field profiles, our method yields minimal, symmetry-enforced lattice Hamiltonians that reproduce the target photonic dispersion while retaining the mode-resolved (position- and polarization-dependent) structure of the light-matter coupling. We show that these models recover Green's-function-based emitter dynamics in the perturbative regime, while providing access to non-perturbative quantum dynamical simulations beyond emitter-only descriptions. As a proof of principle, we apply the framework to a two-dimensional photonic crystal and show that it captures polarization-dependent directional emission inaccessible to scalar models, while enabling the analysis of non-Markovian light-matter dynamics and entanglement. Our results provide a practical bridge between classical electromagnetic simulation tools and quantum-optical many-body and non-Markovian modeling in photonic crystal settings.
In this dissertation we introduce a quantum theory of propagation of light in integrated photonic devices. The necessity of this theory is justified due to the conceptual and formal inconsistencies the Hamiltonian theory presents when dealing with propagation problems. Taking into account the orthonormalization property and the modal norms, we carry out a canonical quantization of the flux of Momentum and derive Heisenberg equations. We apply it to coupling devices with different features of the refractive index: inhomogeneities, nonlinear response and losses; like N × N linear and nonli- near directional couplers and spontaneous parametric down conversion and spontaneous four wave mixing-based nonlinear inhomogeneous waveguides. Likewise, we introduce the optical field-strength space and the amplitude probability distributions in this representation, and by means of a spatial- type Lagrangian theory we derive by path integration propagators in this space for different-media based devices. In this way we solve the propagation for discrete and continuous variables. Next, we present a new method of characterization of quantum states introducing a generalized quantum polarization, based on the confinement in particular regions of the optical field space of the probability distributions of quantum states. Likewise, we propose a consistent polarization degree, a figure which measures how different a state is from a full unpolarized one, showing its application to the characterization of various examples of stationary and dynamic quantum states. The last aim of this dissertation is to measure quantum states of light propagating in integrated photonic devices. We designe a versatile and relia- ble electro-optic integrated device to accomplish this goal. This device allows carrying out any SU(2) unitary transformation and is able to be nested as well, allowing its extension to SU(N) transformations. Likewise, it outper- forms other current schemes based on pasive directional couplers due to its ability to reduce the effect produced by fabrication errors, a very important fact when complex circuits are involved. We perform simulations and show possible applications. In summary, in this thesis we develop tools to design and simulate the performance of photonic devices, as well as propose a characterization me- thod for quantum states propagating within, with interest in the conti- nuously growing field of integrated quantum photonics.
A quantum mechanical analysis of the propagation of coupled modes in integrated optical waveguides is given. The modal orthonormalization property on a cross-section of an optical waveguide, the vector structure of the guided optical modes and the reversal-time symmetry are taken into account to derive the quantum momentum operator and Heisenberg's equations giving a quantum-consistent formulation of the coupled mode propagation as a function of forward and backward creation and annihilation operators.