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arXiv · 1411.6380

Spontaneous mirror-symmetry breaking in a photonic molecule

Philippe Hamel·Samir Haddadi·Fabrice Raineri·Paul Monnier·Gregoire Beaudoin·Isabelle Sagnes·Ariel Levenson·Alejandro M. Yacomotti
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Abstract

Multi-cavity photonic systems, known as photonic molecules (PMs), are ideal multi-well potential building blocks for advanced quantum and nonlinear optics. A key phenomenon arising in double well potentials is the spontaneous breaking of the inversion symmetry, i.e. a transition from a delocalized to two localized states in the wells, which are mirror images of each other. Although few theoretical studies have addressed mirror-symmetry breaking in micro and nanophotonic systems, no experimental evidence has been reported to date. Thanks to the potential barrier engineering implemented here, we demonstrate spontaneous mirror-symmetry breaking through a pitchfork bifurcation in a PM composed of two coupled photonic crystal nanolasers. Coexistence of localized states is shown by switching them with short pulses. This offers exciting prospects for the realization of ultra-compact, integrated, scalable optical flip-flops based on spontaneous symmetry breaking. Furthermore, we predict such transitions with few intracavity photons for future devices with strong quantum correlations.

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Philippe Hamel, Samir Haddadi, Fabrice Raineri, Paul Monnier, Gregoire Beaudoin, Isabelle Sagnes, Ariel Levenson, Alejandro M. Yacomotti. 2014-11-24. Spontaneous mirror-symmetry breaking in a photonic molecule. https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2015.65

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