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Optical transduction and routing of microwave phonons in cavity-optomechanical circuits

Nature Photonics volume 10, pages 489–496 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Going beyond the canonical cavity-optomechanical system consisting of a Fabry–Perot cavity with a movable end mirror, here we explore a new paradigm in which phononic crystal waveguides are used to wire together local cavity elements to form interacting microcircuits of photons and phonons. Single cavity-waveguide elements, fabricated in the device layer of a silicon-on-insulator microchip, are used to optically excite and detect C-band (∼6 GHz) microwave phonons propagating in phononic-bandgap-guided acoustic waveguides. Interconnecting a pair of optomechanical cavities via a phonon waveguide is then used to demonstrate a tunable delay and filter for microwave-over-optical signals in the 1,500 nm wavelength band. Finally, we realize a tight-binding form of mechanical coupling between distant optomechanical cavities, leading to direct phonon exchange without dissipation in the waveguide. These initial demonstrations indicate the potential of cavity-optomechanical circuits for performing coherent signal processing as well as for realizing new modalities of optical readout in distributed micromechanical sensors.

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Figure 1: Gigahertz dispersion-engineerable phonon waveguide.
Figure 2: Microwave signal processing using optomechanical cavity-waveguide system.
Figure 3: Pulsed and c.w. signal propagation.
Figure 4: Waveguide-mediated distant mechanical coupling.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank J. Cohen and S. Meenehan for help with device fabrication and design. This work was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research Hybrid Nanophotonics Multi-University Research Initiative, Defense Advanced Projects Agency ORCHID and MESO programmes, the Institute for Quantum Information and Matter, an NSF Physics Frontiers Center, with support from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Kavli Nanoscience Institute at Caltech.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kavli Nanoscience Institute and Thomas J. Watson, Sr., Laboratory of Applied Physics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, 91125, California, USA

    Kejie Fang, Matthew H. Matheny, Xingsheng Luan & Oskar Painter

  2. Institute for Quantum Information and Matter, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, 91125, California, USA

    Kejie Fang, Matthew H. Matheny, Xingsheng Luan & Oskar Painter

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  1. Kejie Fang
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Contributions

O.P., K.F. and M.H.M. planned the experiment. K.F. and M.H.M. performed device design and fabrication. K.F., X.L. and M.H.M. performed the measurements. All authors contributed to writing the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Oskar Painter.

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Fang, K., Matheny, M., Luan, X. et al. Optical transduction and routing of microwave phonons in cavity-optomechanical circuits. Nature Photon 10, 489–496 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2016.107

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