Based on the traditional directional coupler, we proposed a scheme to design on-chip polarization beam splitters using an inverse design method. In our scheme, the coupling area of the designed devices are only 0.48 μm× 6.4 μm. By manipulating the refractive index of the coupling region, the devices can work in C-band,L-band, O-band, or any other communication band. Different from conventional design methods, which need to adjust the design parameters artificially, if the initial conditions are determined, the proposed scheme can automatically adjust the design parameters of devices according to specific requirements. The simulation results show that the insertion losses of the designed polarization beam splitters can be less than 0.4 dB(0.35 dB) for TE(TM)mode at the wavelengths of 1310, 1550, and 1600 nm, and the extinction ratios are larger than 19.9 dB for the TE and TM modes at all three wavelengths. Besides, the extinction ratios of both polarization states are more than 14.5 dB within the wavelength range of 1286–1364 nm, 1497–1568 nm, and 1553–1634 nm. At the same time,the insertion losses are smaller than 0.46 dB.
JIE HUANGJUNBO YANGDINGBO CHENXIN HEYUNXIN HANJINGJING ZHANGZHAOJIAN ZHANG
To achieve photon-pair generation scaling, we optimize the quality factor of microring resonators for efficient continuous-wave-pumped spontaneous four-wave mixing. Numerical studies indicate that a high intrinsic quality factor makes high pair rate and pair brightness possible, in which the maximums take place under overcoupling and critical-coupling conditions, respectively. We fabricate six all-pass-type microring resonator samples on a silicon-on-insulator chip involving gap width as the only degree of freedom. The signal count rate, pair brightness,and coincidence rate of all the samples are characterized, which are then compared with the modified simulations by taking the detector saturation and nonlinear loss into account. Being experimentally validated for the first time to the best of our knowledge, this work explicitly demonstrates that reducing the round-trip loss in a ring cavity and designing the corresponding optimized gap width are more effective to generate high-rate or high-brightness photon pairs than the conventional strategy of simply increasing the quality factor.
KAI GUOXIAODONG SHIXIAOLIN WANGJUNBO YANGYUNHONG DINGHAIYAN OUYIJUN ZHAO
A novel symmetrical chirped beam splitter based on a binary blazed grating is proposed, which adopts the fully-etched grating structure compatible with the current fabrication facilities for CMOS technology and convenient for integration and manufacture process. This structure can realize nearly equal-power splitting operation under the condition of TE polarization incidence. When the absolutely normal incidence occurs at the wavelength of 1580 nm, the coupling efficiencies of the left and the right branches are 43.627% and 43.753%, respectively. Moreover, this structure has the tolerances of 20 nm in etched depth and 3?in incident angle, which is rather convenient to manufacture facility.
Second-order topological insulators(SOTIs) have recently attracted much attention due to their capability to support lower-dimensional topological states, namely, the corner states. Here, we demonstrate that properly designed supercell metasurfaces can support photonic corner states, meanwhile further serving as an ideal platform for the implementations of topological polaritons and dynamically reconfigurable corner states by assembling two-dimensional materials. Such metasurfaces consist of an array of finite-sized SOTIs mimicking the twodimensional Su–Schrieffer–Heeger model. We reveal that the topological transition happens in unit cells without the bandgap, and nondegenerate multipolar corner states emerge in the supercell metasurface due to the inter-and intrasupercell coupling effects. Especially since these corner states are above the light line of the metasurface, we realize the collective stimulation of the two dipolar corner states and their superposition state via far-field excitation. By stacking monolayer hexagonal boron nitride film onto the metasurface, we further achieve the topological phonon polaritons through the strong coupling between the corner state and the phonon, which is confirmed by the Rabi splitting as well as anticrossing behavior emerging in the transmission spectra.Furthermore, we reveal the robustness of the corner state and strong coupling by introducing defects into the metasurface. Finally, tunable corner state and strong coupling with on-demand control are realized by assembling monolayer graphene onto the metasurface. Our theoretical study proposes a unique hybrid-material platform for topological polaritonics and reconfigurable topological photonics, which can promote large-area topological applications in practice.
