Fabrication of a microtoroidal resonator with picometer precise resonant wavelength

Low-loss and high-resolution mechanical mode tuning in microspheres

Lack of tunability impedes the wide application of optomechanical systems; however, little research exists on mechanical frequency tuning. Herein, ultra-fine low-loss dynamical mechanical frequency tuning is achieved by compressing a microsphere along the axial direction. The tuning resolution reaches approximately 4% of the mechanical linewidth, and the variation range of the mechanical quality factor (Q_m) is within 2.9% of the untouched Q_m. The roles of geometric deformation, spring effect, and stiffness were also evaluated through simulation and experimental analysis. Furthermore, sine function modulation was displayed, with a Pearson coefficient exceeding 99.3%, to achieve arbitrary-function mechanical resonance tuning. This method paves the way for scalable optomechanical applications, such as mechanical vibration synchronization or optomechanics-based optical wavelength conversion.

Optothermal dynamics in whispering-gallery microresonators

Optical whispering-gallery-mode microresonators with ultrahigh quality factors and small mode volumes have played an important role in modern physics. They have been demonstrated as a diverse platform for a wide range of applications in photonics, such as nonlinear optics, optomechanics, quantum optics, and information processing. Thermal behaviors induced by power build-up in the resonators or environmental perturbations are ubiquitous in high-quality-factor whispering-gallery-mode resonators and have played an important role in their operation for various applications. In this review, we discuss the mechanisms of laser-field-induced thermal nonlinear effects, including thermal bistability and thermal oscillation. With the help of the thermal bistability effect, optothermal spectroscopy and optical nonreciprocity have been demonstrated. By tuning the temperature of the environment, the resonant mode frequency will shift, which can also be used for thermal sensing/tuning applications. The thermal locking technique and thermal imaging mechanisms are discussed briefly. Finally, we review some techniques employed to achieve thermal stability in a high-quality-factor resonator system.

Arbitrary function resonance tuner of the optical microcavity with sub-MHz resolution

Tuning the resonance frequency of an optical whispering gallery mode microcavity is extremely important in its various applications. Here we report the design and implementation of a function resonance tuner of an optical microcavity with a resolution of about 650 kHz (7 pm at 1450 nm band). A piezoelectric nano-positioner is used to mechanically compress the microsphere in its axial direction. Furthermore, the resonance can be periodically tuned as an arbitrary function, such as the sine and sigmoid functions, with over 99% fitting accuracy. This Letter greatly expands the application of ultrahigh quality factor microresonators in a multi-mode coupling system or time-floquet system.

Robust hybrid hyper-controlled-not gates assisted by an input-output process of low-Q cavities

The two or more degrees of freedoms (DOFs) of photon systems are very useful in hyperparallel photonic quantum computing to accomplish more quantum logic gate operations with less resource, and depress photonic dissipation noise in quantum information processing. We present some flexible and adjustable schemes for hybrid hyper-controlled-not (hyper-CNOT) gates assisted by low-Q cavities, on the two-photon systems in both the spatial-mode and the polarization DOFs. These hybrid spatial-polarization hyper-CNOT gates consume less quantum resource and are more robust against photonic dissipation noise, compared with the integration of two cascaded CNOT gates in one DOF. Besides, simultaneous counter-propagation of two photons economize extremely the operation time in the whole process of our schemes. Moreover, these quantum logic gates are more feasible for fast quantum operations in the weak-coupling region of the low-Q cavities with current experimental technology, which are much different from strong-coupling cases of the high-Q ones.

Multiple EIT and EIA in optical microresonators

Multiple-path interference plays a fundamental role in classical and quantum physics. In this work, we propose two general schemes to realize multiple electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) and electromagnetically induced absorption (EIA) in coupled microresonators and optomechanical systems. We give explicit physical descriptions and find out that these two schemes are essentially equivalent to each other. More importantly, we experimentally demonstrate both multiple EIT and EIA by coupling a microtoroid to a microsphere that supports multiple high Q optical modes with dense modes distributions. The theory fits well with the experimental results. We believe that our study and experimental results lay a foundation for realizing arbitrary multiple pathways interference in applications.

Characterization of microresonator-geometry-deformation for cavity optomechanics

We have studied the effect of geometry deformation on the mechanical frequencies and quality factors for different modes in the Whispering Gallery Mode (WGM) microresonators, that is unavoidable in the practical fabrication. The subsidence of the sphere and a more general condition with fewer symmetries and complex deformation of eccentricity, subsidence, and offset are first modeled in this paper, which could tune the mechanical frequency in a much wider spectral range than the pillar-diameter-induced perturbation. we also show that the mechanical quality factors for the non-whispering-gallery mechanical mode could be increased in the order of 4 magnitudes at a specific subsidence, and form a mechanical bound state in the continuum (BIC) which is induced by the symmetry breaking and reveals new mechanisms to confine radiation. A much broader BIC window width with higher mechanical quality factor could be achieved, which is of great importance in both fundamental research and scientific applications.

Ultralong photonic nanojet formed by dielectric microtoroid structure

A photonic nanojet (PNJ) is a highly confined light beam formed by a transparent particle under light wave illumination. Here, we propose and numerically investigate the PNJ formed by a dielectric circular toroid with micro dimensions and a homogenous refractive index. Three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations are conducted and demonstrate that ultralong PNJs can be formed by the doughnut-like structure. Besides, microtoroid structures can allow high-index materials (n=3.5) for PNJ generation. Various PNJ properties, including the focal distance, PNJ length, full width at half-maximum, and maximum intensity, can be flexibly tuned by modifying the geometry of the proposed structure.

Optothermal control of gains in erbium-doped whispering-gallery microresonators

Erbium-doped whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) microcavities have great potential in many important applications, such as the precision detection and the micro/nano laser. However, they are sensitive to the fluctuations from the pump laser and the environment. Here we demonstrate the precise controlling of transmission spectra and optical gains using optothermal scanning methods in erbium-doped WGM microcavities. The transmission spectrum of the probe signal exhibits the transition between asymmetric Fano-like resonance and the Lorentz peak (or dip) through tuning the input frequency and the scanning speed of the pump laser. In particular, the analytical calculations can fit well with our experimental results through adiabatically eliminating the anticlockwise optical mode. This Letter shows that the optothermal control of gains is more robust to external noises, which paves a crucial step toward the application in the ultra-sensitive detection.

Optomechanically engineered phononic mode resonance

Optomechanics describes the interaction between the optical field and mechanics, and the optomechanical system provides an ideal interface between photons and phonons. The role of the electromagnetic field during optomechanical interaction is studied in this paper as it is regarded as a phonon transmission medium. An analytical model is built to study the phononic mode resonance and reveals the transmission properties of the phonons, which are related to the variance of the frequency of the electromagnetic field. Moreover, when one mechanical mode is driven, different mode resonant properties could be achieved on the transmission spectrum of phonons between the two mechanical modes. We believe that the current work provides significant results for the research of phononic devices.

Implementation of single-photon quantum routing and decoupling using a nitrogen-vacancy center and a whispering-gallery-mode resonator-waveguide system

Quantum router is a key element needed for the construction of future complex quantum networks. However, quantum routing with photons, and its inverse, quantum decoupling, are difficult to implement as photons do not interact, or interact very weakly in nonlinear media. In this paper, we investigate the possibility of implementing photonic quantum routing based on effects in cavity quantum electrodynamics, and present a scheme for single-photon quantum routing controlled by the other photon using a hybrid system consisting of a single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center coupled with a whispering-gallery-mode resonator-waveguide structure. Different from the cases in which classical information is used to control the path of quantum signals, both the control and signal photons are quantum in our implementation. Compared with the probabilistic quantum routing protocols based on linear optics, our scheme is deterministic and also scalable to multiple photons. We also present a scheme for single-photon quantum decoupling from an initial state with polarization and spatial-mode encoding, which can implement an inverse operation to the quantum routing. We discuss the feasibility of our schemes by considering current or near-future techniques, and show that both the schemes can operate effectively in the bad-cavity regime. We believe that the schemes could be key building blocks for future complex quantum networks and large-scale quantum information processing.

All-optical nanopositioning of high-Q silica microspheres

A tunable, all-optical, coupling method is realised for a high-Q silica microsphere and an optical waveguide. By means of a novel optical nanopositioning method, induced thermal expansion of an asymmetric microsphere stem for laser powers up to 211 mW is observed and used to fine tune the microsphere-waveguide coupling. Microcavity displacements ranging from (0.61 ± 0.13) - (3.49 ± 0.13) μm and nanometer scale sensitivities varying from (2.81 ± 0.08) - (17.08 ± 0.76) nm/mW, with an apparent linear dependency of coupling distance on stem laser heating, are obtained. Using this method, the coupling is altered such that the different coupling regimes are achieved.