From fundamental discovery to practical application, advances in the optical and quantum sciences rely upon precise control of light-matter interactions. Systems of coupled optical cavities are ubiquitous in these efforts, yet design and active modification of the hybridized mode properties remains challenging. Here, we demonstrate the design, fabrication, and analysis of a tunable heterogeneous photonic molecule consisting of a ring resonator strongly coupled to a nanobeam photonic crystal cavity. Leveraging the disparity in mode volume between these two strongly coupled cavities, we combine theory and experiment to establish the ability to actively tune the mode volume of the resulting super-modes over a full order of magnitude. As the mode volume determines the strength of light-matter interactions, this work illustrates the potential for strongly coupled cavities with dissimilar mode volumes in applications requiring designer photonic properties and tunable light-matter coupling, such as photonics-based quantum simulation.

中文翻译：

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主动调节异质子光子分子中的杂化模式

从基础发现到实际应用，光学和量子科学的进步都依赖于对光-物质相互作用的精确控制。在这些努力中，耦合光学腔的系统无处不在，但是对混合模式特性的设计和主动修改仍然具有挑战性。在这里，我们演示了可调谐异质光子分子的设计，制造和分析，该分子由牢固耦合到纳米束光子晶体腔的环形谐振腔组成。利用这两个强耦合腔之间的模量差异，我们结合理论和实验来建立在整个数量级上主动调整所得超模的模量的能力。由于模式体积决定了光物质相互作用的强度，