Kejie Fang

Generalized non-reciprocity in an optomechanical circuit via synthetic magnetism and reservoir engineering

Synthetic magnetism has been used to control charge neutral excitations for applications ranging from classical beam steering to quantum simulation. In optomechanics, radiation-pressure-induced parametric coupling between optical (photon) and mechanical (phonon) excitations may be used to break time-reversal symmetry, providing the prerequisite for synthetic magnetism. Here we design and fabricate a silicon optomechanical circuit with both optical and mechanical connectivity between two optomechanical cavities. Driving the two cavities with phase-correlated laser light results in a synthetic magnetic flux, which, in combination with dissipative coupling to the mechanical bath, leads to non-reciprocal transport of photons with 35 dB of isolation. Additionally, optical pumping with blue-detuned light manifests as a particle non-conserving interaction between photons and phonons, resulting in directional optical amplification of 12 dB in the isolator through-direction. These results suggest the possibility of using optomechanical circuits to create a more general class of non-reciprocal optical devices, and further, to enable new topological phases for both light and sound on a microchip.

Photonic Aharonov–Bohm effect in photon–phonon interactions

The Aharonov–Bohm effect is one of the most intriguing phenomena in both classical and quantum physics, and associates with a number of important and fundamental issues in quantum mechanics. The Aharonov–Bohm effects of charged particles have been experimentally demonstrated and found applications in various fields. Recently, attention has also focused on the Aharonov–Bohm effect for neutral particles, such as photons. Here we propose to utilize the photon–phonon interactions to demonstrate that photonic Aharonov–Bohm effects do exist for photons. By introducing nonreciprocal phases for photons, we observe experimentally a gauge potential for photons in the visible range based on the photon–phonon interactions in acousto-optic crystals, and demonstrate the photonic Aharonov–Bohm effect. The results presented here point to new possibilities to control and manipulate photons by designing an effective gauge potential.

Ultracompact nonreciprocal optical isolator based on guided resonance in a magneto-optical photonic crystal slab

We design an ultracompact optical isolator with normal incident geometry that operates with a bandwidth that is substantial for a device of this size. For operation in a telecommunication wavelength of 1.55 μm, the thickness of the device is less than 1 μm and the device supports an operating bandwidth of 400 GHz over which the minimum contrast ratio exceeds 25 dB. Our design utilizes guided resonance in a photonic crystal slab to enhance magneto-optical effects, and exploits interference effects among multiple resonances to create desired transmission spectral line shapes.

High-sensitivity magnetometry based on quantum beats in diamond nitrogen-vacancy centers

We demonstrate an absolute magnetometer based on quantum beats in the ground state of nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond. We show that, by eliminating the dependence of spin evolution on the zero-field splitting D, the magnetometer is immune to temperature fluctuation and strain inhomogeneity. We apply this technique to measure low-frequency magnetic field noise by using a single nitrogen-vacancy center located within 500 nm of the surface of an isotopically pure (99.99% 12C) diamond. The photon-shot-noise limited sensitivity achieves 38  nT/sqrt[Hz] for 4.45 s acquisition time, a factor of sqrt[2] better than the implementation which uses only two spin levels. For long acquisition times (>10  s), we realize up to a factor of 15 improvement in magnetic sensitivity, which demonstrates the robustness of our technique against thermal drifts. Applying our technique to nitrogen-vacancy center ensembles, we eliminate dephasing from longitudinal strain inhomogeneity, resulting in a factor of 2.3 improvement in sensitivity.

Controlling the Flow of Light Using the Inhomogeneous Effective Gauge Field that Emerges from Dynamic Modulation

We show that the effective gauge field for photons provides a versatile platform for controlling the flow of light. As an example we consider a photonic resonator lattice where the coupling strength between nearest neighbor resonators are harmonically modulated. By choosing different spatial distributions of the modulation phases, and hence imposing different inhomogeneous effective magnetic field configurations, we numerically demonstrate a wide variety of propagation effects including negative refraction, one-way mirror, and on- and off-axis focusing. Since the effective gauge field is imposed dynamically after a structure is constructed, our work points to the importance of the temporal degree of freedom for controlling the spatial flow of light.

Noncommutative geometry modified non-Gaussianities of cosmological perturbation

We investigate the noncommutative effect on the non-Gaussianities of primordial cosmological perturbation. In the lowest order of string length and slow-roll parameter, we find that in the models with small speed of sound the noncommutative modifications could be observable if assuming a relatively low string scale. In particular, the dominant modification of the non-Gaussianity estimator f{sub NL} could reach O(1) in Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) inflation and K-inflation. The corrections are sensitive to the speed of sound and the choice of string length scale. Moreover the shapes of the corrected non-Gaussianities are distinct from that of ordinary ones.

Photonic de Haas-van Alphen effect

Based on the recently proposed concept of effective gauge potential and magnetic field for photons, we numerically demonstrate a photonic de Haas-van Alphen effect. We show that in a dynamically modulated photonic resonator lattice exhibiting an effect magnetic field, the trajectories of the light beam at a given frequency have the same shape as the constant energy contour for the photonic band structure of the lattice in the absence of the effective magnetic field.

Two-dimensional Green’s tensor for gyrotropic clusters composed of circular cylinders

The construction of Greens tensor for two-dimensional gyrotropic photonic clusters composed of cylinders with circular cross sections using the semi-analytic multipole method is presented. The high efficiency and accuracy of the method is demonstrated. The developed method is applied to gyrotropic clusters that support topological chiral Hall edge states. The remarkable tolerance of chiral Hall edge modes toward substantial cluster separation is revealed. The transformation of chiral Hall edge states as the cluster separation increases is also presented. The excitation of chiral Hall edge modes for different source orientations is considered. Both gyroelectric and gyromagnetic (ferrite) clusters are treated.

Integrated silicon optomechanical cavity-waveguide devices for coherent photonic-microwave signal processing

In an integrated silicon optomechanical cavity-waveguide system, we demonstrated on-chip coherent photonic-microwave signal processing which shows clear advantages over purely photonic methods. Specifically, we obtain an optical delay of 13.3 µs for a phonon waveguide length of 43 µm. In addition, we demonstrated microwave filter with reconfigurable pass/rejection bands in the gigahertz frequency range due to a novel radiation-pressure force induced boundary condition change.

Inducing electro-optic photonic transitions for enabling isolation in silicon photonics

We show approaches for achieving CMOS compatible on-chip isolators. The devices are achieved by inducing photonic GHz electro-optic transitions on a time scale faster than the photon time of flight in the structure.