Experimental Demonstration of Spontaneous Chirality in a Nonlinear Microresonator

Chirality is an asymmetric property widely found in nature. Here, we propose and demonstrate experimentally the spontaneous emergence of chirality in an on-chip ultrahigh-Q whispering-gallery microresonator, without broken parity or time-reversal symmetry. This counterintuitive effect arises due to...

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Published inPhysical review letters Vol. 118; no. 3; p. 033901
Main Authors Cao, Qi-Tao, Wang, Heming, Dong, Chun-Hua, Jing, Hui, Liu, Rui-Shan, Chen, Xi, Ge, Li, Gong, Qihuang, Xiao, Yun-Feng
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 20.01.2017
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Summary:Chirality is an asymmetric property widely found in nature. Here, we propose and demonstrate experimentally the spontaneous emergence of chirality in an on-chip ultrahigh-Q whispering-gallery microresonator, without broken parity or time-reversal symmetry. This counterintuitive effect arises due to the inherent Kerr-nonlinearity-modulated coupling between clockwise and counterclockwise propagating waves. Above an input threshold of a few hundred microwatts, the initial chiral symmetry is broken spontaneously, and the counterpropagating output ratio exceeds 20∶1 with bidirectional inputs. The spontaneous chirality in an on-chip microresonator holds great potential in studies of fundamental physics and applied photonic devices.
ISSN:1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/physrevlett.118.033901