Enhanced energy storage in chaotic optical resonators

Chaos is a phenomenon that occurs in many aspects of contemporary science. In classical dynamics, chaos is defined as a hypersensitivity to initial conditions. The presence of chaos is often unwanted, as it introduces unpredictability, which makes it difficult to predict or explain experimental resu...

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Published inNature photonics Vol. 7; no. 6; pp. 473 - 478
Main Authors Liu, C., Di Falco, A., Molinari, D., Khan, Y., Ooi, B. S., Krauss, T. F., Fratalocchi, A.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.06.2013
Nature Publishing Group
Subjects
639/624/399
639/624/400
Applied and Technical Physics
Bandwidths
Cavity resonators
Chaos theory
Deformation
Direct power generation
Energy storage
Hypersensitivity
Initial conditions
Interdisciplinary subjects
Mathematical analysis
Optical resonators
Optics
Photonics
Physics
Quantum Physics
Resonators
Spectrum allocation
Stores
United Kingdom > UK
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Summary:Chaos is a phenomenon that occurs in many aspects of contemporary science. In classical dynamics, chaos is defined as a hypersensitivity to initial conditions. The presence of chaos is often unwanted, as it introduces unpredictability, which makes it difficult to predict or explain experimental results. Conversely, we demonstrate here how chaos can be used to enhance the ability of an optical resonator to store energy. We combine analytic theory with ab initio simulations and experiments in photonic-crystal resonators to show that a chaotic resonator can store six times more energy than its classical counterpart of the same volume. We explain the observed increase by considering the equipartition of energy among all degrees of freedom of the chaotic resonator (that is, the cavity modes) and discover a convergence of their lifetimes towards a single value. A compelling illustration of the theory is provided by enhanced absorption in deformed polystyrene microspheres. Chaotic resonators constructed from planar silicon-on-insulator photonic crystals and deformed polystyrene microspheres are demonstrated to store up to six times more light energy than their classical, non-chaotic counterparts. This effect is attributed to the modification of the trajectories and lifetimes of photons in the cavity.
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ISSN:1749-4885
1749-4893
DOI:10.1038/nphoton.2013.108