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Optically controlling the emission chirality of microlasers

Nature Photonics volume 13, pages 283–288 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Orbital angular momentum (OAM) carried by helical light beams is an unbounded degree of freedom that offers a promising platform in modern photonics. So far, integrated sources of coherent light carrying OAM are based on resonators whose design imposes a single, non-tailorable chirality of the wavefront (that is, clockwise or counterclockwise vortices). Here we propose and demonstrate the realization of an integrated microlaser where the chirality of the wavefront can be optically controlled. Importantly, the scheme that we use, based on the optical breaking of time-reversal symmetry in a semiconductor microcavity, can be extended to different laser architectures, thus paving the way to the realization of a new generation of OAM microlasers with tunable chirality.

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Fig. 1: Spin–orbit coupling in benzene-like OAM lasers.
Fig. 2: Orbital angular momentum lasing in the \(\left| \ell \right| = 1\) manifold.
Fig. 3: Orbital angular momentum lasing in the \(\left| \ell \right| = 2\) manifold.
Fig. 4: Operation at 80 K.

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Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank L. A. Orozco for discussions. This work was supported by ERC grant Honeypol, the H2020-FETFLAG project PhoQus (project no. 820392), the QUANTERA project Interpol (ANR-QUAN-0003-05), the French National Research Agency (ANR) projects Quantum Fluids of Light (ANR-16-CE30-0021), Labex CEMPI (ANR-11-LABX-0007), NanoSaclay (ICQOQS, grant no. ANR-10-LABX-0035), and IDEX-ISITE 16-IDEX-0001 (CAP 20-25), the French RENATECH network, the CPER Photonics for Society P4S and the Métropole Européenne de Lille via the project TFlight. P.S.-J. acknowledges financial support from the Marie Curie individual fellowship ToPol and from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. D.D.S. acknowledges the support of IUF (Institut Universitaire de France).

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: N. Carlon Zambon, P. St-Jean.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre de Nanosciences et de Nanotechnologies (C2N), CNRS - Université Paris-Sud - Université Paris-Saclay, Palaiseau, France

    N. Carlon Zambon, P. St-Jean, M. Milićević, A. Lemaître, A. Harouri, L. Le Gratiet, I. Sagnes, S. Ravets & J. Bloch

  2. Institut Pascal, PHOTON-N2, Université Clermont Auvergne, CNRS, SIGMA Clermont, Clermont-Ferrand, France

    O. Bleu, D. D. Solnyshkov & G. Malpuech

  3. Univ. Lille, CNRS, UMR 8523 – PhLAM – Physique des Lasers Atomes et Molécules, Lille, France

    A. Amo

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Contributions

N.C.Z. and P.S.-J. performed the experiments, analysed the data and wrote the manuscript. P.S.-J. developed the group theory arguments. M.M. performed preliminary work. A.L., A.H., L.L. and I.S. grew and processed the sample. O.B., D.D.S. and G.M. provided theoretical input. S.R. participated in the experimental work and in scientific discussions. A.A. and J.B. designed the experiment and supervised the work. All authors revised the manuscript.

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Correspondence to N. Carlon Zambon or P. St-Jean.

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Carlon Zambon, N., St-Jean, P., Milićević, M. et al. Optically controlling the emission chirality of microlasers. Nat. Photonics 13, 283–288 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-019-0380-z

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