Optomechanical creation of magnetic fields for photons on a lattice
Schmidt M, Keßler S, Peano V, Painter O, Marquardt F (2015)
Publication Type: Journal article
Publication year: 2015
Journal
Book Volume: 2
Pages Range: 635-641
Journal Issue: 7
Abstract
Recently, there has been growing interest in the creation of artificial magnetic fields for uncharged particles, such as cold atoms or photons. These efforts are partly motivated by the resulting desirable features, such as transport along edge states that is robust against backscattering. We analyze how the optomechanical interaction between photons and mechanical vibrations can be used to create artificial magnetic fields for photons on a lattice. The ingredients required are an optomechanical crystal, i.e., a free-standing photonic crystal with localized vibrational and optical modes, and two laser beams with the right pattern of phases. One of the two schemes analyzed here is based on optomechanical modulation of the links between optical modes, while the other is a lattice extension of optomechanical wavelengthconversion setups. We analyze both schemes theoretically and present numerical simulations of the resulting optical spectrum, photon transport in the presence of an artificial Lorentz force, edge states, and the photonic Aharonov– Bohm effect. We discuss the requirements for experimental realizations. Finally, we analyze the completely general situation of an optomechanical system subject to an arbitrary optical phase pattern and conclude that it is best described in terms of gauge fields acting in synthetic dimensions. In contrast to existing nonoptomechanical approaches, the schemes analyzed here are very versatile, since they can be controlled fully optically, allowing for time-dependent in situ tunability without the need for individual electrical addressing of localized optical modes.
Authors with CRIS profile
Stefan Keßler
Lehrstuhl für Theoretische Physik
Vittorio Peano Cavasola
Institut für Theoretische Physik
Florian Marquardt
Lehrstuhl für Theoretische Physik
Involved external institutions
United States (USA) (US)How to cite
APA:
Schmidt, M., Keßler, S., Peano, V., Painter, O., & Marquardt, F. (2015). Optomechanical creation of magnetic fields for photons on a lattice. Optica, 2(7), 635-641. https://dx.doi.org/10.1364/OPTICA.2.000635
MLA:
Schmidt, Manfred, et al. "Optomechanical creation of magnetic fields for photons on a lattice." Optica 2.7 (2015): 635-641.
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