Controlled transportation of light by light at the microscale

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a microscale device that uses a whispering gallery soliton to controllably transport light by light, enabling precise manipulation of optical pulses through nanoscale fiber modifications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel microscale optical device that employs a whispering gallery soliton for controlled light transport, with tunable speed and direction via nanoscale fiber radius variations.

Findings

Successful design of a miniature fiber-based device for light transport

Controlled soliton propagation speed and direction achieved

Optical pulses can be loaded and unloaded at designated microfibers

Abstract

We show how light can be controllably transported by light at microscale dimensions. We design a miniature device which consists of a short segment of an optical fiber coupled to transversely-oriented input-output microfibers. A whispering gallery soliton is launched from the first microfiber into the fiber segment and slowly propagates along its mm-scale length. The soliton loads and unloads optical pulses at designated input-output microfibers. The speed of the soliton and its propagation direction is controlled by the dramatically small, yet feasible to introduce permanently or all-optically, nanoscale variation of the effective fiber radius.