Kerr-Nonlinearity-Induced Mode-Splitting in Optical Microresonators

Ghalanos GN, Silver JM, Del Bino L, Moroney N, Zhang S, Woodley MTM, Svela AO, Del'Haye P (2020)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2020

Journal

Physical Review Letters American Physical Society

Book Volume: 124

Journal Issue: 22

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.223901

Abstract

The Kerr effect in optical microresonators plays an important role for integrated photonic devices and enables third harmonic generation, four-wave mixing, and the generation of microresonator-based frequency combs. Here we experimentally demonstrate that the Kerr nonlinearity can split ultra-high-Q microresonator resonances for two continuous-wave lasers. The resonance splitting is induced by self- and cross-phase modulation and counterintuitively enables two lasers at different wavelengths to be simultaneously resonant in the same microresonator mode. We develop a pump-probe spectroscopy scheme that allows us to measure power dependent resonance splittings of up to 35 cavity linewidths (corresponding to 52 MHz) at 10 mW of pump power. The required power to split the resonance by one cavity linewidth is only 286 mu W. In addition, we demonstrate threefold resonance splitting when taking into account four-wave mixing and two counterpropagating probe lasers. These Kerr splittings are of interest for applications that require two resonances at optically controlled offsets, e.g., for optomechanical coupling to phonon modes, optical memories, and precisely adjustable spectral filters.

Authors with CRIS profile

Pascal Del'Haye Lehrstuhl für Experimentalphysik (Optik)

Additional Organisation(s)

Department Physik

Involved external institutions

The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) GB United Kingdom (GB) Max-Planck-Institut für die Physik des Lichts (MPL) / Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light DE Germany (DE)

How to cite

APA:

Ghalanos, G.N., Silver, J.M., Del Bino, L., Moroney, N., Zhang, S., Woodley, M.T.M.,... Del'Haye, P. (2020). Kerr-Nonlinearity-Induced Mode-Splitting in Optical Microresonators. Physical Review Letters, 124(22). https://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.223901

MLA:

Ghalanos, George N., et al. "Kerr-Nonlinearity-Induced Mode-Splitting in Optical Microresonators." Physical Review Letters 124.22 (2020).

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