Discretized optical dynamics in one-dimensionally synthetic photonic lattice

TL;DR

This paper systematically investigates one-dimensional synthetic photonic lattices with controllable gauge fields, demonstrating tunable band structures, wave packet dynamics, and phenomena like Bloch oscillations and Anderson localization, advancing photonic quantum simulation.

Contribution

It introduces a method to control band properties and wave dynamics in 1D synthetic photonic lattices using phase-tuned gauge fields, enabling new research avenues.

Findings

Demonstrated tunable band translation and gap properties.

Observed impulse and Gaussian wave packet responses, including Talbot recurrences.

Realized Bloch oscillations and Anderson localization through phase modulation.

Abstract

Synthetic photonic lattice with temporally controlled potentials is a versatile platform for realizing wave dynamics associated with physical areas of optics and quantum physics. Here, discrete optics in one-dimensionally synthetic photonic lattice is investigated systematically, in which the light behavior is highly similar to those in evanescently coupled one-dimensional discrete waveguides. Such a synthetic dimension is constructed with position-dependent periodic effective gauge fields based on Aharonov-Bohm effect arising from the phase accumulations of the fiber loops. By tuning the phase accumulations and coupling coefficient of the coupler, the band translation and gap property can be modulated which further results in the impulse and tailored Gaussian wave packet responses as well as Talbot recurrences. In addition, Bloch oscillations and Anderson localization can also be obtained when the phase accumulations are linearly changed and weakly modulated in random, respectively. The periodic effective gauge fields configuration in our protocol enables SPL to be a research platform for one-dimensional dynamically modulated elements or even non-Hermitian waveguides.