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Dispersionless Coupling among Optical Waveguides by Artificial Gauge Field

Wange Song, Ting Li, Shengjie Wu, Zhizhang Wang, Chen Chen, Yuxin Chen, Chunyu Huang, Kai Qiu, Shining Zhu, Yi Zou, and Tao Li
Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 053901 – Published 26 July 2022
Physics logo See synopsis: Curved Light Channels Have Better Coupling
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Abstract

Coupling among closely packed waveguides is a common optical phenomenon, and plays an important role in optical routing and integration. Unfortunately, this coupling property is usually sensitive to the working wavelength and structure features that hinder the broadband and robust functions. Here, we report a new strategy utilizing an artificial gauge field (AGF) to engineer the coupling dispersion and realize a dispersionless coupling among waveguides with periodically bending modulation. The AGF-induced dispersionless coupling is experimentally verified in a silicon waveguide platform, which already has well-established broadband and robust routing functions (directional coupling and splitting), suggesting potential applications in integrated photonics. As examples, we further demonstrate a three-level-cascaded AGF waveguide network to route broadband light to desired ports with an overwhelming advantage over the conventional ones in comparison. Our method provides a new route of coupling dispersion control by AGF and benefits applications that fundamentally rely on waveguide coupling.

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  • Received 19 January 2022
  • Revised 13 February 2022
  • Accepted 14 June 2022

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.053901

© 2022 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Atomic, Molecular & OpticalCondensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

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Curved Light Channels Have Better Coupling

Published 26 July 2022

More frequencies of light can pass between two coupled wavy waveguides than between two coupled straight ones, something that could allow for more flexible designs of optics-based circuits on silicon chips.

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Authors & Affiliations

Wange Song1, Ting Li2, Shengjie Wu1, Zhizhang Wang1, Chen Chen1, Yuxin Chen1, Chunyu Huang1, Kai Qiu1, Shining Zhu1, Yi Zou2, and Tao Li1,*

  • 1National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, Key Laboratory of Intelligent Optical Sensing and Integration, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Artificial Functional Materials, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China
  • 2School of Information Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai 201210, China

  • *Corresponding author. taoli@nju.edu.cn

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Issue

Vol. 129, Iss. 5 — 29 July 2022

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