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Non-reciprocal phase shift induced by an effective magnetic flux for light

Nature Photonics volume 8, pages 701–705 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

Photons are neutral particles that do not interact directly with a magnetic field. However, recent theoretical work1,2 has shown that an effective magnetic field for photons can exist if the phase of light changes with its direction of propagation. This direction-dependent phase indicates the presence of an effective magnetic field, as shown experimentally for electrons in the Aharonov–Bohm experiment. Here, we replicate this experiment using photons. To create this effective magnetic field we construct an on-chip silicon-based Ramsey-type interferometer3,4,5,6,7. This interferometer has been traditionally used to probe the phase of atomic states and here we apply it to probe the phase of photonic states. We experimentally observe an effective magnetic flux between 0 and 2π corresponding to a non-reciprocal 2π phase shift with an interferometer length of 8.35 mm and an interference-fringe extinction ratio of 2.4 dB. This non-reciprocal phase is comparable to those of common monolithically integrated magneto-optical materials.

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Figure 1: Effective magnetic field for light using a Ramsey-type interferometer.
Figure 2: Ramsey-type interferometer design and fabrication.
Figure 3: Effective magnetic field experiment.
Figure 4: Wavelength dependence of the interference effect for the photonic Ramsey-type interferometer.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through CIAN ERC (grant no. EEC 0812072) and by NSF grant no. 1202265. This work was performed in part at the Cornell Nanoscale Facility, a member of the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network, which is supported by the NSF. P.N. acknowledges support from Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP grant no. 2011/12140-6). The authors acknowledge support from the US Air Force (AFOSR; program FA9550-09-1-0704 on ‘Robust and Complex on-chip Nanophotonics’ supervised by G. Pomrenke).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, 14853, New York, USA

    Lawrence D. Tzuang, Paulo Nussenzveig & Michal Lipson

  2. Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, 94305, California, USA

    Kejie Fang & Shanhui Fan

  3. Thomas J. Watson, Sr, Laboratory of Applied Physics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, 91125, California, USA

    Kejie Fang

  4. Instituto de Física, Universidade de São Paulo, PO Box 66318, São Paulo, 05315-970, Brazil

    Paulo Nussenzveig

  5. Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, 14853, New York, USA

    Michal Lipson

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  1. Lawrence D. Tzuang
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  3. Paulo Nussenzveig
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  4. Shanhui Fan
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  5. Michal Lipson
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Contributions

L.D.T. performed the experiment. L.D.T. and K.F. designed the experiment and analysed the data. P.N., S.F. and M.L. supervised the project. L.D.T and M.L. prepared the manuscript. K.F., P.N. and S.F. edited the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Michal Lipson.

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Tzuang, L., Fang, K., Nussenzveig, P. et al. Non-reciprocal phase shift induced by an effective magnetic flux for light. Nature Photon 8, 701–705 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2014.177

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