Tuning out disorder-induced localization in nanophotonic cavity arrays

Abstract

Weakly coupled high-Q nanophotonic cavities are building blocks of slowlight waveguides and other nanophotonic devices. Their functionality critically depends on tuning as resonance frequencies should stay within the bandwidth of the device. Unavoidable disorder leads to random frequency shifts which cause localization of the light in single cavities. We present a new method to finely tune individual resonances of light in a system of coupled nanocavities. We use holographic laser-induced heating and address thermal crosstalk between nanocavities using a response matrix approach. As a main result we observe a simultaneous anticrossing of 3 nanophotonic resonances, which were initially split by disorder. a) s.a.sokolov@uu.nl; http://www.nanolinx.nl/ 1 arXiv:1608.01257v3 [physics.optics]

Comb of high‐Q Resonances in a Compact Photonic Cavity

“…A local change of about 1 K would compensate a frequency offset of 10 GHz (see Supplementary Information ). Indeed, individual tuning of the resonances in coupled PhC cavities has been demonstrated . We point out that local thermal tuning can be implemented through the Joule effect in close electric paths …”

Quantum state transfer via acoustic edge states in a 2D optomechanical array

“…Reaching this level of precision is technically challenging, but since this is a common goal for many photonic crystal applications, a lot of efforts are currently focused on the development of photonic structures with significantly reduced levels of disorder. A promising direction are post-fabrication fine-tuning techniques, such as demonstrated in [69,70], by which the required levels of accuracy can be reached.…”

High-Q optical comb based on a photonic harmonic potential (Conference Presentation)

“…From a more practical point of view, a control on the resonances is highly desirable and only requires a spectral displacement of about ten GHz, which could be obtained by a local temperature change of about 1 K. This should be fairly easy, given the peculiar localization of higher modes (Fig 1). The individual control of the modes in a chain of coupled PhC resonators issued from the same technology (GaInP ) has been demonstrated over a much broader tuning range using holographic techniques to induce a well controlled thermal gradient [59]. An implementation of the concept more appropriate for applications would exploit the Joule effect in close electric paths [60].…”