China University of Science and Technology uses optical force systems to achieve non-reciprocal frequency conversion

2023/1/9

The team of Academician Guo Guangcan of our university has made new progress in the research of cavity optical force system. Professor Chunhua Dong's research group realizes the interaction between two optical modes and two mechanical modes through the optical radiation pressure, and then realizes the fully optically controlled non-reciprocal frequency conversion between any two modes. The research results were published in the international academic journal Physics Review Letters on January 6, 2023.

Optical and acoustic non-reciprocal devices are very important components in constructing information processing and sensing systems based on photons and phonons. Although magnetically induced non-reciprocity has been widely used in discrete optical non-reciprocity devices, it still faces challenges in device integration. At the same time, because of the weak effect of magnetically induced acoustic non-reciprocity, it is difficult to realize integrated acoustic non-reciprocity devices. Cavity photomechanical systems are one of the effective systems for realizing non-magnetic non-reciprocity, and a non-magnetic optical circulator based on cavity photoforce interactions has been demonstrated in previous work (Nature Communications 9, 1797 (2018)).

Figure Note: a-b. Four-mode coupling in the optical power microcavity; c. Theoretical and experimental results of phase-controlled non-reciprocal frequency conversion.

In this work, the team studied the non-reciprocal conversion of photons and phonons in a single microcavity. Two optical modes and two mechanical modes are used to interact with each other through optical forces to form a closed-loop four-module lattice with completely different frequencies of 388 THz, 309 THz, 117 MHz and 79 MHz respectively. The team demonstrated non-reciprocal conversions between any two nodes in four modes, including phonon-phonon (MHz-MHz), photon-photon (THz-THz), and photon-phonon (THz-MHz). The principle of this non-reciprocal conversion is to construct an artificial gauge field by using multiple modes in the optical force microcavity (see another work of the research group Physics Review Letters 126, 123603 (2021)), and realize the geometric phase in the gauge field by controlling the phase of light. Thus, the flexible non-reciprocal conversion of all optical control can be realized. Next, a third mechanical mode is introduced into the cell to implement a phonon circulator whose direction is determined by two independent control light phases.

The experimental results can be extended to other optical and mechanical modes in the microcavity, and a hybrid network with more nodes can be constructed to realize one-way transmission of information in the hybrid network, which has potential applications in the field of communication and information processing, especially in optical WDM networks and discrete quantum systems used to connect different frequencies.

Zhen Shen and Yanlei Zhang are co-first authors of the paper, and Chunhua Dong is corresponding author of the paper. The above research was supported by the Key Research and Development Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the Cutting-edge Collaborative Innovation Center for Quantum Information and Quantum Technology.

Attached paper link:https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.013601

(Key Laboratory of Quantum Information, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Institute of Quantum Information and Quantum Technology Innovation, Chinese Academy of Sciences; School of Physics; Department of Scientific Research)

Source: China University of Science and Technology News

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China University of Science and Technology uses optical force systems to achieve non-reciprocal frequency conversion

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