Breaking Reciprocity in a non-Hermitian Photonic Coupler with Saturable Absorption

Abstract

We study the breaking of reciprocity in non-Hermitian coupled photonic waveguides by the simultaneous action of the nonlinear effect of saturable absorption, and the presence of exceptional points. The nonlinear response of such a system is studied in depth, giving physical insight into the operational principles and fundamental limitations, while producing analytical and semi-analytical results for the transmission and nonreciprocal intensity range. We numerically validate the theoretical results and assess important performance metrics for the nonreciprocal operation of such a device. This novel class of passive non-resonant devices can offer on-chip broadband nonreciprocal operation, making them potentially very important for high-speed applications.

10 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Physical Review A on 15-Feb-2021

References in corpus (2)

• Dynamically encircling exceptional points: Exact evolution and polarization state conversion
• Asymmetric Si-slot Coupler with Nonreciprocal Response Based on Graphene Saturable Absorption

Cited by in corpus (3)

• The infinity-loop microresonator: A new integrated photonic structure working on an exceptional surface
• Extraction of power transmission parameters from PT-symmetric waveguides
• Third-order exceptional surface in a pseudo-Hermitian superconducting circuit