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Physical Review Letters

Time Reversal of Light with Linear Optics and Modulators

Mehmet Fatih Yanik, Shanhui Fan

Published Oct 22, 2004• 136 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We introduce a new physical process that can perform a complete time-reversal operation on any electromagnetic pulse. The process uses only small refractive index modulations of linear optical elements. No nonlinear multiphoton effects such as four-wave mixing are required. The introduced process can be implemented on chip with standard semiconductor materials. Furthermore, the same process can be used to compress or expand the spectrum of electromagnetic waves while completely preserving the coherent information. We exhibit the time-reversal process by first-principles simulations of microcavity complexes in photonic crystals.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.93.173903

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We introduce a new physical process that can perform a complete time-reversal operation on any electromagnetic pulse. The process uses only small refractive index modulations of linear optical elements. No nonlinear multiphoton effects such as four-wave mixing are required. The introduced process can be implemented on chip with standard semiconductor materials. Furthermore, the same process can be used to compress or expand the spectrum of electromagnetic waves while completely preserving the coherent information. We exhibit the time-reversal process by first-principles simulations of microcavity complexes in photonic crystals.
We show that the use of tunable photonic structures opens up unprecedented possibilities in information processing. In particular, we introduce an all-optical adiabatic bandwidth compression and frequency conversion process that overcomes the classical bandwidth-delay constraint in optics. This process requires only very small index modulations (δn/n<10-4) performed at moderate speeds, and yet can alter the spectrum of a photon almost at will. As examples of this process, we show how light pulses can be stopped and stored all-optically in multitude of systems without using any resonant or coherent electronic interactions. We also show how light pulses can be time-reversed using only linear optical elements and modulators. Such systems open up new opportunities in both fundamental sciences and technological applications.
We introduce a new all-optical mechanism that can compress the bandwidth of light pulses to absolute zero, and bring them to a complete stop. The mechanism can be realized in a system consisting of a waveguide side coupled to tunable resonators, which generates a photonic band structure that represents a classical analogue of the electromagnetically induced transparency. The same system can also achieve a time-reversal operation. We demonstrate the operation of such a system by finite-difference time-domain simulations of an implementation in photonic crystals.
We discuss how dynamic light stopping and pulse time reversal can be implemented in dispersive waveguides via indirect photonic transitions induced by moving refractive index fronts. The previous concepts of light stopping/time reversal either require complex local variation of the device’s refractive index or rely on the strict phase matching condition, which imposes limitations on the amount of manipulated information. Until now, only single pulses or continuous waves were manipulated experimentally. Our scheme is not limited by a strict phase matching condition and does not require local index variations, thus it can manipulate broadband signals in a single step process. Here, we present several numerically integrated results for pulse time reversal and stopping/storage via indirect front-induced transitions. The presented results are experimentally feasible using existing photonic waveguide technologies.
We show that light pulses can be stopped and stored coherently, with an all-optical adiabatic and reversible pulse bandwidth compression process. Such a process overcomes the fundamental bandwidth-delay constraint in optics and can generate arbitrarily small group velocities for any light pulse with a given bandwidth, without any coherent or resonant light-matter interactions. We exhibit this process in optical resonators, where the bandwidth compression is accomplished only by small refractive-index modulations performed at moderate speeds.
We show that light pulses can be stopped and stored all-optically, with a process that involves an adiabatic and reversible pulse bandwidth compression occurring entirely in the optical domain. Such a process overcomes the fundamental bandwidth-delay constraint in optics, and can generate arbitrarily small group velocities for any light pulse with a given bandwidth, without the use of any coherent or resonant light-matter interactions. We exhibit this process in optical resonator systems, where the pulse bandwidth compression is accomplished only by small refractive index modulations performed at moderate speeds. The optically achievable ultra low speeds can also generate extremely large non-linearities using non-resonant interactions, and thus enable decoherence-free single photon quantum gates.