Dynamic acousto-mechanical control of a strongly coupled photonic molecule

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates rapid, electrically driven acousto-mechanical control of coupled photonic crystal nanocavities, enabling fast, large-range tuning for quantum photonic networks and overcoming limitations of previous mechanical methods.

Contribution

It introduces a novel electrically generated radio frequency surface acoustic wave for fast optomechanical tuning of photonic molecules, surpassing traditional mechanical speeds.

Findings

Achieved tuning speeds over three orders of magnitude faster than resonant mechanical methods.

Demonstrated large tuning range to compensate for fabrication-induced cavity detuning.

Enabled dynamic control of coherent interactions in coupled photonic cavities.

Abstract

Two-dimensional photonic crystal membranes provide a versatile planar architecture for integrated photonics to control the propagation of light on a chip employing high quality optical cavities, waveguides, beamsplitters or dispersive elements. When combined with highly non-linear quantum emitters, quantum photonic networks operating at the single photon level come within reach. Towards large-scale quantum photonic networks, selective dynamic control of individual components and deterministic interactions between different constituents are of paramount importance. This indeed calls for switching speeds ultimately on the system's native timescales. For example, manipulation via electric fields or all-optical means have been employed for switching in nanophotonic circuits and cavity quantum electrodynamics studies. Here, we demonstrate dynamic control of the coherent interaction between two coupled photonic crystal nanocavities forming a photonic molecule. By using an electrically generated radio frequency surface acoustic wave we achieve optomechanical tuning, demonstrate operating speeds more than three orders of magnitude faster than resonant mechanical approaches. Moreover, the tuning range is large enough to compensate for the inherent fabrication-related cavity mode detuning. Our findings open a route towards nanomechanically gated protocols, which hitherto have inhibited the realization in all-optical schemes.