Pseudomagnetic Control of Light Waves in the Electrically Tunable Photonic Crystals with Deformation Engineering

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates an electrically tunable, deformation-engineered photonic crystal that manipulates pseudo-magnetic fields to control light waves on a chip, enabling localized and resonant photon states with electrical tuning.

Contribution

It introduces a novel triaxially deformed silicon-based photonic cavity that achieves Landau quantization and electrical tunability of pseudo-magnetic effects in integrated photonic circuits.

Findings

Landau quantization observed in deformed photonic honeycomb lattices

Electrical tuning of optical resonant states at -0.018 THz/mW

On-chip detection and excitation of Landau-quantized photon states

Abstract

With the demonstrations of pseudo-magnetism in optical systems, the pursuits of its practical applications require not only the use of pseudomagnetic fields to create functional optical devices but also a reliable method to manipulate pseudo-magnetism-affected light waves. Here, we experimentally demonstrate an ultracompact Si-based cavity formed by triaxially deformed photonic honeycomb lattices. The triaxial deformation could lead to Landau quantization, showing the possibilities of realizing the localization and resonating of photons with pseudomagnetic fields. Through adopting the Si waveguides for directional coupling, we successfully obtain the transmission spectra for the proposed cavities in the photonic integrated circuits. This opens a novel avenue for highly efficient excitations and detections of Landau-quantized photonic density of states, totally on chip. Moreover, we verify a linear electrical tunability of -0.018 THz/mW for the pseudo-magnetism-induced optical resonant states, fulfilling the manipulation of photons without varying deformations. Our work introduces a mechanism for performing tunable light waves in triaxial deformation-engineered systems, which enriches the design principles of integrated optical devices.