Synthetic photonic lattices: new routes towards all-optical photonic devices

Abstract

All-optical photonic devices are crucial for many important photonic technology and applications, ranging from optical communication to quantum information processing. Conventional design of all-optical devices is based on photon propagation and interference in real space, which may reply on large numbers of optical elements and are challenging for precise control. Here we propose a new route for engineering all-optical devices using photon internal degrees of freedom, which form photonic crystals in such synthetic dimensions for photon propagation and interference. We demonstrate this new design concept by showing how important optical devices such as quantum memory and optical filter can be realized using synthetic orbital angular momentum (OAM) lattices in a single main degenerate cavity. The new designing route utilizing synthetic photonic lattices may significantly reduce the requirement for numerous optical elements and their fine tuning in conventional design, paving the way for realistic all-optical photonic devices with novel functionalities.

Degenerate cavity supporting more than 31 Laguerre–Gaussian modes

“…Recently, a new kind of photonics simulator based on energy-degenerated optical cavities has been theoretically presented, which can support a large number of OAM modes [14]. By taking advantage of such kind of optical cavity, one can simulate photonics topological matters, as well as construct all-optical devices by manipulating in photonic synthetic dimension [15,16]. All such potentially novel applications are ascribed to set up a kind of degenerate optical cavity, which can support plenty of energy-degenerated OAM modes.…”