Resonators with tailored optical path by cascaded-mode conversions
arXiv:2202.11775 · doi:10.1038/s41467-023-35956-9
Abstract
Optical resonators enable the generation, manipulation, and storage of electromagnetic waves. They are widely used in technology and fundamental research, in telecommunications, lasers and nonlinear optics, ultra-sensitive measurements in cavity optomechanics, and the study of light-matter interactions in the context of cavity QED. The physics underlying their operation is determined by the constructive interference of electromagnetic waves at specific frequencies, giving rise to the resonance spectrum. This mechanism causes the limitations and trade-offs of resonator design, such as the difficulty of confining waves larger than the resonator and the fixed relationship between free spectral range, modal linewidth, and the resonator's refractive index and size. Here, we introduce a new class of optical resonators, generating resonances by designing the optical path through transverse mode coupling in a cascaded process created by mode-converting mirrors. The generalized round-trip phase condition leads to resonator characteristics that are markedly different from Fabry-Perot resonators and can be tailored over a wide range, such as the largest resonant wavelength, the free spectral range, the linewidth, and the quality factor. We confirm the existence of these modes experimentally in an integrated waveguide cavity with mode converters coupling two transverse modes into one supermode. The resonance signature of the cascaded-mode resonator is a spectrum resulting from the coherent superposition of the coupled transverse modes. We also demonstrate a transverse mode-independent transmission through the resonator and show that its engineered spectral properties agree with theoretical predictions. Cascaded-mode resonators introduce properties not found in traditional resonators and provide a mechanism to overcome the existing trade-offs in the design of resonators in various application areas.
References in corpus (23)
- Topological Photonics
- Robust optical delay lines via topological protection
- Ultrastrong coupling between light and matter
- Resonantly Trapped Bound State in the Continuum Laser
- Individual nanoantennas empowered by bound states in the continuum for nonlinear photonics
- Ultra-high-Q toroidal microresonators for cavity quantum electrodynamics
- Breaking the Loss Limitation of On-chip High-confinement Resonators
- Metasurface integrated Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers for programmable directional lasing emissions
- Second-Harmonic Generation in Silicon Nitride Ring Resonators
- Design of photonic crystal microcavities for cavity QED
- General Recipe for Designing Photonic Crystal Cavities
- Deterministic quantum nonlinear optics with single atoms and virtual photons
- Ultrathin and Multicolor Optical Cavities with Embedded Metasurfaces
- Geometry-Invariant Resonant Cavities
- Quantum Interference between Transverse Spatial Waveguide Modes
- Observation of supercavity modes in subwavelength dielectric resonators
- Dissipative Topological Defects in Coupled Laser Networks
- Frequency conversion in ultrastrong cavity QED
- Hybrid guided space-time optical modes in unpatterned films
- Mirror symmetric on-chip frequency circulation of light
- Photonic modal circulator using temporal refractive-index modulation with spatial inversion symmetry
- Hybridization of Singular Plasmons via Transformation Optics
- Probing Graphene's Nonlocality with Singular Metasurfaces