Femtojoule-scale all-optical latching and modulation via cavity nonlinear optics

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates femtojoule-scale all-optical latching and modulation using cavity nonlinear optics, highlighting potential for ultra-low power photonic devices and fundamental nonlinear dynamics studies.

Contribution

It experimentally characterizes Hopf bifurcation phenomena at femtojoule energies in cavity QED systems and applies this to design all-optical memory and modulation devices.

Findings

Observation of Hopf bifurcations at femtojoule energy levels

Development of a semiclassical model for atom-cavity interactions

Potential for ultra-low power photonic signal processing

Abstract

We experimentally characterize Hopf bifurcation phenomena at femtojoule energy scales in a multi-atom cavity quantum electrodynamical (cavity QED) system, and demonstrate how such behaviors can be exploited in the design of all-optical memory and modulation devices. The data are analyzed using a semiclassical model that explicitly treats heterogeneous coupling of atoms to the cavity mode. Our results highlight the interest of cavity QED systems for ultra-low power photonic signal processing as well as for fundamental studies of mesoscopic nonlinear dynamics.