Dynamic Nonreciprocity with a Kerr Nonlinear Resonator

Abstract

On-chip optical nonreciprocal devices are vital components for integrated photonic systems and scalable quantum information processing. Nonlinear optical isolators and circulators have attracted considerable attention because of their fundamental interest and their important advantages in integrated photonic circuits. However, optical nonreciprocal devices based on Kerr or Kerr-like nonlinearity are subject to dynamical reciprocity when the forward and backward signals coexist simultaneously in a nonlinear system. Here, we theoretically propose a method for realizing on-chip nonlinear isolators and circulators with dynamic nonreciprocity. Dynamic nonreciprocity is achieved via the chiral modulation on the resonance frequency due to coexisting self- and cross-Kerr nonlinearities in an optical ring resonator. This work showing dynamic nonreciprocity with a Kerr nonlinear resonator can be an essential step toward integrated optical isolation.

Reversible Optical Isolators and Quasi-Circulators Using a Magneto-Optical Fabry–Pérot Cavity

“…Dynamically reversing the propagation direction of light in NRODs is highly desirable, particularly for reconfigurable quantum networks. [2,[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] To circumvent the severe constraints imposed by strong magnetic fields, one effort is devoted to magnetfree optical nonreciprocity, including chiral quantum optics systems, [5,19,[26][27][28][29][30][31] spatiotemporal modulation of the medium, [32][33][34] optical nonlinearity, [3,[35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42] the Doppler effect, [20,[43][44][45][46][47] optomechanical resonators, [48][49][50][51][52] spinning resonators, [53] etc. An alternative avenue involves enhancing the MO effect by exploiting strong MO materials, [54][55]…”

Nonreciprocal Photon Blockade Based on Zeeman Splittings Induced by a Fictitious Magnetic Field

“…Optical nonreciprocity [1,2] is typically achieved in magnetooptics materials with the magnetic circular dichroism and circular birefringence. [3][4][5] To avoid challenge of integrating magnet-based nonreciprocal devices on a chip, alternative strategies to realize magnetic-free optical nonreciprocity have been experimentally demonstrated and theoretically proposed, such as optical nonlinearities, [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] spatiotemporal modulation of dielectric permittivity, [16][17][18][19][20] atomic gases with susceptibility-momentum locking, [21][22][23][24] optomechanical (OM) systems, [25][26][27][28][29] spinning resonators, [30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37] moving atomic lattices, [38][39][40] chiral light-matter interaction, [41][42][43][44][45][46] and light...…”