arXiv subjects

Gustavo S. Wiederhecker

Publications and source records attributed to Gustavo S. Wiederhecker.

32 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

Designing of strongly confined short-wave Brillouin phonons in silicon waveguide periodic lattices

We propose a feasible waveguide design optimized for harnessing Stimulated Brillouin Scattering with long-lived phonons. The design consists of a fully suspended ridge waveguide surrounded by a 1D phononic crystal that mitigates losses to the substrate while providing the needed homogeneity for the build-up of the optomechanical interaction. The coupling factor of these structures was calculated to be 0.54 (W.m)$^{-1}$ for intramodal backward Brillouin scattering with its fundamental TE-like mode and 4.5(W.m)$^{-1}$ for intramodal forward Brillouin scattering. The addition of the phononic crystal provides a 30 dB attenuation of the mechanical displacement after only five unitary cells, possibly leading to a regime where the acoustic losses are only limited by fabrication. As a result, the total Brillouin gain, which is proportional to the product of the coupling and acoustic quality factors, is nominally equal to the idealized fully suspended waveguide.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2020

Quasinormal-mode perturbation theory for dissipative and dispersive optomechanics

Despite the several novel features arising from the dissipative optomechanical coupling, such effect remains vastly unexplored due to the lack of a simple formalism that captures non-Hermiticity in optomechanical systems. In this Letter, we show that quasinormal-mode-based perturbation theory is capable of correctly predicting both dispersive and dissipative optomechanical couplings. We validate our model through simulations and also by comparison with experimental results reported in the literature. Finally, we apply this formalism to plasmonic systems, used for molecular optomechanics, where strong dissipative coupling signatures in the amplification of vibrational modes are observed.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2020

Alumina coating for dispersion management in ultra-high Q microresonators

Silica optical microspheres often exhibit ultra-high quality factors, yet, their group velocity dispersion, which is crucial for nonlinear optics applications, can only be coarsely tuned. We experimentally demonstrate that group-velocity dispersion of a silica microsphere can be engineered by coating it with conformal nanometric layers of alumina, yet preserving its ultra-high optical quality factors (\num{\sim e7}) at telecom wavelengths. Using the atomic layer deposition technique for the dielectric coating, which ensures nm-level thickness control, we not only achieve a fine dispersion tailoring but also maintain a low surface roughness and material absorption to ensure a low optical loss. Numerical simulations supporting our experimental results show that the alumina layer thickness is a promising technique for precise tuning of group-velocity dispersion. As an application we demonstrate the generation of Kerr optical frequency combs, showing that the alumina coatings can also sustain the high optical intensities necessary for nonlinear optical phenomena.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2019

Bright and Vivid Diffractive-Plasmonic Structural Colors

Colors observed in nature are very important to form our perception of an object as well as its design. The desire to reproduce vivid colors such as those found in birds, fishes, flowers and insects has driven extensive research into nanostructured surfaces. Structural colors based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR) have played an important role in this field due to its high spatial resolution. Creating vivid color reflecting surfaces is still a major challenge and could revolutionize low power consumption image displays. Here we combine diffraction and plasmonic effects to design bright and vivid-color reflecting surfaces. The periodic reflection patterns are designed through genetic algorithm optimization and are defined in aluminum coated silicon chips.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2019

Ar/Cl$_{2}$ etching of GaAs optomechanical microdisks fabricated with positive electroresist

A method to fabricate GaAs microcavities using only a soft mask with an electrolithographic pattern in an inductively coupled plasma etching is presented. A careful characterization of the fabrication process pinpointing the main routes for a smooth device sidewall is discussed. Using the final recipe, optomechanical microdisk resonators are fabricated. The results show a very high optical quality factors of $Q_\text{opt}>2\times 10^{5}$, among the largest already reported for dry-etching devices. The final devices are also shown to present high mechanical quality factors and an optomechanical vacuum coupling constant of $g_{0}=2π\times 13.6$ kHz enabling self-sustainable mechanical oscillations for an optical input power above $1$ mW.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2017

Efficient anchor loss suppression in coupled near-field optomechanical resonators

Elastic dissipation through radiation towards the substrate is a major loss channel in micro- and nanomechanical resonators. Engineering the coupling of these resonators with optical cavities further complicates and constrains the design of low-loss optomechanical devices. In this work we rely on the coherent cancellation of mechanical radiation to demonstrate material and surface absorption limited silicon near-field optomechanical resonators oscillating at tens of MHz. The effectiveness of our dissipation suppression scheme is investigated at room and cryogenic temperatures. While at room temperature we can reach a maximum quality factor of 7.61k ($fQ$-product of the order of $10^{11}$~Hz), at 22~K the quality factor increases to 37k, resulting in a $fQ$-product of $2\times10^{12}$~Hz.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Ultrahigh-Q optomechanical crystals cavities fabricated on a CMOS foundry

Photonic crystals use periodic structures to create forbidden frequency regions for optical wave propagation, that allow for the creation and integration of complex optical functions in small footprint devices. Such strategy has also been successfully applied to confine mechanical waves and to explore their interaction with light in the so-called optomechanical cavities. Because of their challenging design, these cavities are traditionally fabricated using dedicated high-resolution electron-beam lithography tools that are inherently slow, limiting this solution to small-scale applications or research. Here we show how to overcome this problem by using a deep-UV photolithography process to fabricate optomechanical crystals on a commercial CMOS foundry. We show that a careful design of the photonic crystals can withstand the limitations of the photolithography process, producing cavities with measured intrinsic optical quality factors as high as $Q_{i}=(1.21\pm0.02)\times10^{6}$. Optomechanical crystals are also created using phononic crystals to tightly confine the sound waves within the optical cavity that results in a measured vacuum optomechanical coupling rate of $g_{0}=2π\times(91\pm4)$ kHz. Efficient sideband cooling and amplification are also demonstrated since these cavities are in the resolved sideband regime. Further improvement in the design and fabrication process suggest that commercial foundry-based optomechanical cavities could be used for quantum ground-state cooling.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Brillouin Optomechanics in Coupled Silicon Microcavities

The simultaneous control of optical and mechanical waves has enabled a range of fundamental and technological breakthroughs, from the demonstration of ultra-stable frequency reference devices to the exploration of the quantum-classical boundaries in laser-cooling experiments. More recently, such an opto-mechanical interaction has been observed in integrated nano-waveguides and microcavities in the Brillouin regime, where short-wavelength mechanical modes scatters light at several GHz. Here we engineer coupled optical microcavities spectra to enable a low threshold excitation of mechanical travelling-wave modes through backward stimulated Brillouin scattering. Exploring the backward scattering we propose microcavity designs supporting super high frequency modes ($\sim25$ GHz) an large optomechanical coupling rates ($g_0/2π\sim 50$ kHz).

physics.optics↗

arXiv2016

Modeling quasi-dark states with Temporal Coupled-Mode Theory

Coupled resonators are commonly used to achieve tailored spectral responses and allow novel functionalities in a broad range of applications, from optical modulation and filtering in integrated photonic circuits to the study of nonlinear dynamics in arrays of resonators. The Temporal Coupled-Mode Theory (TCMT) provides a simple and general tool that is widely used to model these devices and has proved to yield very good results in many different systems of low-loss, weakly coupled resonators. Relying on TCMT to model coupled resonators might however be misleading in some circumstances due to the lumped-element nature of the model. In this article, we report an important limitation of TCMT related to the prediction of dark states. Studying a coupled system composed of three microring resonators, we demonstrate that TCMT predicts the existence of a dark state that is in disagreement with experimental observations and with the more general results obtained with the Transfer Matrix Method (TMM) and the Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) simulations. We identify the limitation in the TCMT model to be related to the mechanism of excitation/decay of the supermodes and we propose a correction that effectively reconciles the model with expected results. A comparison with TMM and FDTD allows to verify both steady-state and transient solutions of the modified-TCMT model. The proposed correction is derived from general considerations, energy conservation and the non-resonant power circulating in the system, therefore it provides good insight on how the TCMT model should be modified to eventually account for the same limitation in a different coupled-resonator design. Moreover, our discussion based on coupled microring resonators can be useful for other electromagnetic resonant systems due to the generality and far-reach of the TCMT formalism.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2016

Hybrid confinement of optical and mechanical modes in a bullseye optomechanical resonator

Optomechanical cavities have proven to be an exceptional tool to explore fundamental and technological aspects of the interaction between mechanical and optical waves. Such interactions strongly benefit from cavities with large optomechanical coupling, high mechanical and optical quality factors, and mechanical frequencies larger than the optical mode linewidth, the so called resolved sideband limit. Here we demonstrate a novel optomechanical cavity based on a disk with a radial mechanical bandgap. This design confines light and mechanical waves through distinct physical mechanisms which allows for independent control of the mechanical and optical properties. Our device design is not limited by unique material properties and could be easily adapted to allow large optomechanical coupling and high mechanical quality factors with other promising materials. Finally, our demonstration is based on devices fabricated on a commercial silicon photonics facility, demonstrating that our approach can be easily scalable.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2016

Brillouin Scattering Self-Cancellation

The interaction between light and acoustic phonons is strongly modified in sub-wavelength confinement, and has led to the demonstration and control of Brillouin scattering in photonic structures such as nano-scale optical waveguides and cavities. Besides the small optical mode volume, two physical mechanisms come into play simultaneously: a volume effect caused by the strain induced refractive index perturbation (known as photo-elasticity), and a surface effect caused by the shift of the optical boundaries due to mechanical vibrations. As a result proper material and structure engineering allows one to control each contribution individually. In this paper, we experimentally demonstrate the perfect cancellation of Brillouin scattering by engineering a silica nanowire with exactly opposing photo-elastic and moving-boundary effects. This demonstration provides clear experimental evidence that the interplay between the two mechanisms is a promising tool to precisely control the photon-phonon interaction, enhancing or suppressing it.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2015

Spectral Engineering with Coupled Microcavities: Active Control of Resonant Mode-Splitting

Optical mode-splitting is an efficient tool to shape and fine-tune the spectral response of resonant nanophotonic devices. The active control of mode-splitting, however, is either small or accompanied by undesired resonance shifts, often much larger than the resonance-splitting. We report a control mechanism that enables reconfigurable and widely tunable mode-splitting while efficiently mitigating undesired resonance shifts. This is achieved by actively controlling the excitation of counter-traveling modes in coupled resonators. The transition from a large splitting (80 GHz) to a single-notch resonance is demonstrated using low power microheaters (35 mW). We show that the spurious resonance-shift in our device is only limited by thermal crosstalk and resonance-shift-free splitting control may be achieved.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2011

Broadband Tuning of Optomechanical Cavities

We demonstrate broadband tuning of an optomechanical microcavity optical resonance by exploring the large optomechanical coupling of a double-wheel microcavity and its uniquely low mechanical stiffness. Using a pump laser with only 13 mW at telecom wavelengths we show tuning of the silicon nitride microcavity resonances over 32 nm. This corresponds to a tuning power efficiency of only 400 $μ$W/nm. By choosing a relatively low optical Q resonance ($\approx$18,000) we prevent the cavity from reaching the regime of regenerative optomechanical oscillations. The static mechanical displacement induced by optical gradient forces is estimated to be as large as 60 nm.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2009

Controlling photonic structures using optical forces

The downscaling of optical systems to the micro and nano-scale results in very compliant systems with nanogram-scale masses, which renders them susceptible to optical forces. Here we show a specially designed resonant structure for enabling efficient static control of the optical response with relatively weak repulsive and attractive optical forces. Using attractive gradient optical forces we demonstrate a static mechanical deformation of up to 20 nanometers in the resonator structure. This deformation is enough to shift the optical resonances by roughly 80 optical linewidths.

physics.optics↗