Manipulating cavity photon dynamics by topologically curved space

Abstract

Asymmetric microcavities supporting Whispering-gallery modes (WGMs) are of great significance for on-chip optical information processing. We establish asymmetric microcavities on topologically curved surfaces, where the geodesic light trajectories completely reconstruct the cavity mode features. The curvature-mediated photon-lifetime engineering enables the enhancement of the quality factors of periodic island modes by up to 200 times. Strong and weak coupling between modes of very different origins occurs when the space curvature brings them into resonance, leading to fine tailoring of the cavity photon energy and lifetime and the observation of non-Hermitian exceptional point (EP). At large space curvatures, the role of the WGMs is replaced by high-Q periodic modes protected by the high stability of island-like light trajectory. Our work demonstrates interesting physical mechanisms at the crosspoint of optical chaotic dynamics, non-Hermitian physics, and geodesic optical devices, and would initiate the novel area of geodesic microcavity photonics.

Polaritonic response theory for exact and approximate wave functions

“…We numerically demonstrate the validity of Equations ( 108) and (118). Notice that since Equation ( 108) is fulfilled only in the complete basis set limit, Equations ( 253) and (254) will converge only for large basis sets, as seen from the table.…”

“…52,117 Changing the form of the plates, for example, using curved mirrors similar to lenses, can lead to modifications of the field shape and possibly an increase in the coupling constant. [118][119][120][121][122][123][124] The coupling strength λ in Fabry-Pérot cavities is limited by the diffraction limit, which restrains the field confinement. Devices which bound the fields on a scale smaller than the diffraction limit are called subwavelength cavities and can facilitate ultrastrong coupling.…”

“…Notice that since Equation ( 108) is fulfilled only in the complete basis set limit, Equations ( 253) and (254) will converge only for large basis sets, as seen from the table. At the same time, Equation (118) holds independently of the basis set size and the photon space truncation. Notice that although the equivalence expressed by Equation (115) does not depend on the quality of the basis set, the computed values of the transition moments change with the basis, as expected from the connection between matter and photon moments expressed in Equation (115).…”

“…The strong coupling features of this system are a function of the slab position, which gives us the field strength distribution 52,117 . Changing the form of the plates, for example, using curved mirrors similar to lenses, can lead to modifications of the field shape and possibly an increase in the coupling constant 118–124 . The coupling strength in Fabry–Pérot cavities is limited by the diffraction limit, which restrains the field confinement.…”

Manipulating the supermodes in photonic molecules: prospects for all-optical switching and sensing

“…Compared with the WGM in a single atom governed by the only two key parameters being the microcylinder radius and its refractive index, the PM supermodes have one more degree of freedom as the interatomic gap, which leads to the appearance of a g-dependence of the spectral position and quality factor of each SM. On the one hand, this beneficial SM property is commonly used in the design of optofluidic sensors [4,31] and coupled-cavity microlasers [32,33] when the superimposed deformations of the photonic atom lattice allow to regulate the excitation efficiency of supermodes. On the other hand, the interatomic gap changes can be treated as the fabrication errors of a PM and could spoil particular SM excitation.…”