We consider nonlinear-photonic cavities, flying at the speed of light, with the ability to trap photons. We demonstrate that a nonreciprocal interaction channel can serve to load and unload the cavity.
Abstract A refractive index step, moving at the speed of light, can serve as a trap for weak light waves. Here we shed light on highly unusual features of such trapping, making it fundamentally different from conventional “resting” cavities. First, such trapping can be described as time-tapping rather than space-trapping. Trapping in time provides superior quality Q, but this quality does not anymore impose very narrow spectral lines, breaking thereby the fundamental time-bandwidth limit inherent to most traps of any physical nature. Although the trapped states are almost entirely disconnected from the outer world, a nonreciprocal connection channel involving resonant radiation can be opened and tunably manipulated. Nonreciprocity breaks the balance between the energy currents directed into the trap and back, allowing to load the trap faster than it is possible for reciprocal systems. Exotic, up to now unobserved in optics states such as halo states, and phenomena as anomalously huge delays in transmission occur naturally in a time trap. Beatings between the trapped-in-time modes provide a novel tool for ultrafast shaping of both spectral and temporal waveforms for arbitrary weak wavepackets, even for single photons. Altogether, this promises a highly efficient platform for energy storage, pulse compression, waveform shaping and frequency conversion for ultrafast classical and quantum optics.
For the first time, we investigate the nonreciprocal generation of six-wave mixing (SWM) in an inverted-Y type four-level system with spatially uniform distribution of atoms. The nonreciprocity results from a moving electromagnetically induced grating (EIG) which is formed by two coupling beams with different frequencies. We demonstrate that the nonreciprocity can be controlled by the frequencies of the coupling fields and the powers of the dressing beams. As the distribution of atoms is uniform, the atomic density cannot affect the nonreciprocity, but it will affect the formation of the photonic band gap structure of the moving EIG. This research can be used to make optical diodes or optical isolators, because the moving EIG, the speed of which is related to the frequency difference of the two coupling beams, can break time-reversal symmetry. We also demonstrate that the nonreciprocal SWM can form a nonreciprocal light droplet when it propagates in atomic vapors with third- and fifth-order nonlinear susceptibilities.