Controllable distant interactions at bound state in the continuum

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel BIC metasurface platform enabling dynamically controllable, long-range interactions between microlasers at arbitrary locations, significantly advancing scalable and reconfigurable photonic and quantum networks.

Contribution

It introduces a BIC metasurface with quasi-BIC microlasers supporting long-distance coupling and ultrafast control, overcoming previous limitations in scalability and controllability.

Findings

Coupling distances increased from subwavelength to tens of micrometers.

Enabled two-dimensional scalable architectures.

Achieved ultrafast control of laser actions such as zero-mode lasing.

Abstract

Distant interactions at arbitrary locations and their dynamic control are fundamentally important for realizing large-scale photonic and quantum circuits. Conventional approaches suffer from short coupling distance, poor controllability, fixed locations and low wavelength uniformity, significantly restricting the scalability of photonic and quantum networks. Here, we exploit the intrinsic advantages of optical bound state in the continuum (BIC) and demonstrate an all-in-one solution for dynamically controllable long-range interactions. BIC metasurface can support a series of finite-sized quasi-BIC microlasers at arbitrary locations. The quasi-BICs microlasers have the same wavelength and are inherently connected through BIC waveguide. Consequently, the coupling distances in experiment increase significantly from subwavelength to tens of micrometers. Such long-range interaction in BIC metasurface enables scaling to two-dimensional architectures and ultrafast control of internal laser actions, e.g., non-Hermitian zero-mode lasing and enhanced optical gain. This research shall facilitate the advancement of scalable and reconfigurable photonic networks.