All-optical control of coherent perfect absorption via frequency conversion

Abstract

Coherent perfect absorption (CPA) extinguishes optical fields through interference and dissipation, but conventional implementations rely on material loss that is largely fixed after fabrication. Here we demonstrate all-optically controllable CPA based on frequency conversion in a periodically poled lithium niobate waveguide resonator. Pump-driven frequency conversion couples a resonant signal field at 1581 nm in the main system to a non-resonant environmental mode at 780 nm, creating a dynamically tunable effective loss channel. The nonlinear cavity acts as a tunable lossy beamsplitter without intrinsic material absorption. Under coherent two-sided signal injection, we observe up to 92 % absorption. We further introduce environment-assisted CPA by injecting an external field into the frequency-converted environmental mode, turning the environment from a passive loss reservoir into an addressable coherent control port. Our results establish a frequency-conversion-based platform for all-optical control of dissipation in CPA, combining pump-tunable loss with environment-assisted coherent control.

8 pages, 7 figures