Controlled coupling of photonic crystal cavities using photochromic tuning

TL;DR

This paper introduces a reversible photochromic tuning method for controlling resonant coupling in photonic crystal cavities, enabling precise tuning and analysis of coupled cavity systems for scalable photonic applications.

Contribution

A novel reversible photochromic tuning technique for controlling and studying coupling in photonic crystal cavities, scalable to larger cavity arrays.

Findings

Able to tune two- and three-cavity systems through resonance

Quantitative determination of photon tunneling rates

Scalable method for studying strong interactions in cavity arrays

Abstract

We present a method to control the resonant coupling interaction in a coupled-cavity photonic crystal molecule by using a local and reversible photochromic tuning technique. We demonstrate the ability to tune both a two-cavity and a three-cavity photonic crystal molecule through the resonance condition by selectively tuning the individual cavities. Using this technique, we can quantitatively determine important parameters of the coupled-cavity system such as the photon tunneling rate. This method can be scaled to photonic crystal molecules with larger numbers of cavities, which provides a versatile method for studying strong interactions in coupled resonator arrays.