Acousto-optic modulation of a photonic crystal nanocavity with Lamb waves in microwave K band

Abstract

Integrating nanoscale electromechanical transducers and nanophotonic devices potentially can enable new acousto-optic devices to reach unprecedented high frequencies and modulation efficiency. Here, we demonstrate acousto-optic modulation of a photonic crystal nanocavity using Lamb waves with frequency up to 19 GHz, reaching the microwave K band. The devices are fabricated in suspended aluminum nitride membrane. Excitation of acoustic waves is achieved with interdigital transducers with periods as small as 300 nm. Confining both acoustic wave and optical wave within the thickness of the membrane leads to improved acousto-optic modulation efficiency in the new devices than that obtained in previous surface acoustic wave devices. Our system demonstrates a novel scalable optomechanical platform where strong acousto-optic coupling between cavity-confined photons and high frequency traveling phonons can be explored.

References in corpus (5)

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• Dynamic modulation of photonic crystal nanocavities using gigahertz acoustic phonons
• High-Q aluminum nitride photonic crystal nanobeam cavities
• High-Q silicon optomechanical microdisk resonators at gigahertz frequencies

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• Confined magnetoelastic waves in thin waveguides
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• Light modulation in Silicon photonics by PZT actuated acoustic waves
• Piezoelectric optomechanical approaches for efficient quantum microwave-to-optical signal transduction: the need for co-design
• Gigahertz-frequency Lamb wave resonator cavities on suspended lithium niobate for quantum acoustics