The quest for on-chip optical isolators has recently spawned many new isolator structures. However, there has been some confusion about the requirement of nonreciprocity. Here, we review the essential characteristics of an isolator.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Relevant articles
Open Access articles citing this article.
-
Giant enhancement of nonreciprocity in gyrotropic heterostructures
Scientific Reports Open Access 11 December 2023
-
Non-Hermitian control between absorption and transparency in perfect zero-reflection magnonics
Nature Communications Open Access 10 June 2023
-
Directional terahertz holography with thermally active Janus metasurface
Light: Science & Applications Open Access 05 June 2023
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$209.00 per year
only $17.42 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
References
Maznev, A. A., Every, A. G. & Wright, O. B. Wave Motion 50, 776–784 (2013).
Vassallo, C. Optical Waveguide Concepts Ch. 1 (Elsevier, 1991).
Haus, H. A. Waves and Fields in Optoelectronics Ch. 3 (Prentice-Hall, 1984).
Saleh, B. E. A. & Teich, M. C. Fundamentals of Photonics Ch. 6 (Wiley-Interscience, 2007).
Dötsch, H. et al. J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 22, 240–253 (2005).
Shoji, Y., Ito, M., Shirato, Y. & Mizumoto, T. Opt. Express 20, 18440–18448 (2012).
Van Parys, W. et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 88, 71115 (2006).
Wang, Z. & Fan, S. Opt. Lett. 30, 1989–1991 (2005).
Bi, L. et al. Nature Photon. 5, 758–762 (2011).
Wang, Z., Chong, Y., Joannopoulos, J. D. & Soljačić, M. Nature 461, 772–775 (2009).
Krause, M., Renner, H. & Brinkmeyer, E. Electron. Lett. 44, 691–693 (2008).
Poulton, C. G. et al. Opt. Express 20, 21235–21246 (2012).
Tocci, M. D., Bloemer, M. J., Scalora, M., Dowling, J. P. & Bowden, C. M. Appl. Phys. Lett. 66, 2324–2326 (1995).
Gallo, K., Assanto, G., Parameswaran, K. R. & Fejer, M. M. Appl. Phys. Lett. 79, 314–316 (2001).
Lira, H., Yu, Z., Fan, S. & Lipson, M. Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 33901 (2012).
Yu, Z. & Fan, S. Nature Photon. 3, 91–94 (2009).
Wang, C., Zhong, X.-L. & Li, Z.-Y. Sci. Rep. 2, 674 (2012).
Wang, C., Zhou, C.-Z. & Li, Z.-Y. Opt. Express 19, 26948–26955 (2011).
Fang, X. Opt. Lett. 21, 1792–1794 (1996).
Feng, L. et al. Science 333, 729–733 (2011).
Fan, S. et al. Science 335, 38 (2012).
Petrov, A. et al. Preprint at http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.7243 (2013).
Kurt, H., Yilmaz, D., Akosman, A. E. & Ozbay, E. Opt. Express 20, 20635–20646 (2012).
Lockyear, M. J., Hibbins, A. P., White, K. R. & Sambles, J. R. Phys. Rev. E 74, 56611 (2006).
Serebryannikov, A. E. Phys. Rev. B 80, 155117 (2009).
Ye, W.-M., Yuan, X.-D., Guo, C.-C. & Zen, C. Opt. Express 18, 7590–7595 (2010).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
Christopher R. Doerr is working at Acacia Communications Inc.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Jalas, D., Petrov, A., Eich, M. et al. What is — and what is not — an optical isolator. Nature Photon 7, 579–582 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2013.185
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2013.185
This article is cited by
-
Heat-assisted nonreciprocity
Nature Photonics (2024)
-
Passive bias-free non-reciprocal metasurfaces based on thermally nonlinear quasi-bound states in the continuum
Nature Photonics (2024)
-
Light control with Weyl semimetals
eLight (2023)
-
Giant enhancement of nonreciprocity in gyrotropic heterostructures
Scientific Reports (2023)
-
Integrated passive nonlinear optical isolators
Nature Photonics (2023)