English

Microresonator Isolators and Circulators Based on the Intrinsic Nonreciprocity of the Kerr Effect

Optics 2019-03-01 v1 Applied Physics

Abstract

Nonreciprocal light propagation is important in many applications, ranging from optical telecommunications to integrated photonics. A simple way to achieve optical nonreciprocity is to use the nonlinear interaction between counterpropagating light in a Kerr medium. Within a ring resonator, this leads to spontaneous symmetry breaking, with the result that light of a given frequency can circulate in one direction, but not in both directions simultaneously. In this work, we demonstrate that this effect can be used to realize optical isolators and circulators based on a single ultra- high-Q microresonator. We obtain isolation of more than 24 dB and develop a theoretical model for the power scaling of the attainable nonreciprocity.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1801.09918,
  title  = {Microresonator Isolators and Circulators Based on the Intrinsic Nonreciprocity of the Kerr Effect},
  author = {Leonardo Del Bino and Jonathan M. Silver and Michael T. M. Woodley and Sarah L. Stebbings and Xin Xhao and Pascal Del'Haye},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1801.09918},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

11 pages, 3 figures, to be published in Optica, supplementary information rely on the same list of references as the main article