Self-alignment and instability of waveguides induced by optical forces

Abstract

We introduce a new fundamental property of waveguides induced by the forces of the guided light, namely, the ability to self align or be in instability. A nanoscale waveguide broken by an offset and a gap may tend to self align to form a continuous waveguide. Conversely, depending on the geometry and light polarization, the two parts of the waveguide may be deflected away from each other, thus being in an unstable state. These effects are unique as they rely on the presence of both the guided mode and the scattered light. Strong self alignment forces may be facilitated by near field interaction with polarization surface charges.

Negative radiation pressure on gain medium structures

“…In the past four decades, since the pioneering work of Ashkin [1], laser-induced optical forces on neutral bodies have been a subject of great interest. Research on this topic has included the trapping and manipulation of small particles [2], cavity optomechanics [3], and recently, optical forces on nanoscale waveguides [4][5][6][7][8]. The vast majority of these studies has been focused on structures made of passive dielectric materials, whereas forces on gain media have received little attention.…”

Center-of-Mass Acceleration in Coupled Nanowaveguides Due to Transverse Optical Beating Force

“…The emergence of such optical forces has been thoroughly studied in the past decade, with both attractive and repulsive regimes having been observed [9]. These forces allow for a wide array of optomechanical effects to be built into PICs, such as the dynamical alignment of elements on a chip [10][11][12], the broadband modulation of light [13] and, most strikingly, giant optomechanical Kerr nonlinearities [14] and proofs of concept for non-volatile optomechanical memories [15].…”

Analysis of the optical force in the Micro Ring Resonator

“…A comprehensive review describing the topic of optomechanical device actuation through the gradient optical force can be found in [1]. Several papers performed a theoretical study of the forces between waveguide (WG) structures in various configurations and investigated several potential applications [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. The OF was measured and characterized experimentally in numerous WG configurations [22][23][24][25].…”

“…As expected, the force is significantly enhanced as the wavelength approaches the band edge, and the enhancement factor is close to the enhancement of the group index. The slight discrepancy between the group index enhancement and the force enhancement may be attributed to variation in mode profile as the wavelength approaches the band edge, as well as to numerical inaccuracies in the proximity of the band edge, in particular in estimating the group index near the band edge.After validating that the periodic perturbation enhances the OF, we simulate the desired structure, consisting of a bus WG with 30 holes (with similar parameters as in the previous #149949 -$15.00 USD Received 28 Jun 2011; revised 2 Sep 2011; accepted 5 Sep 2011; published 3 Oct 2011 (C) 2011 OSA 10 October 2011 / Vol. 19, No.…”