A highly efficient asymmetric transmission device for arbitrary linearly polarized light
Introduction
Highly efficient optical asymmetric transmission devices are indispensable for optical quantum computing and information processing [[1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10]]. Among them, nanophotonic optical asymmetric transmission devices (NOATD) have attracted broad attention as they can be integrated in photonic chips [[11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28]]. According to the working principles, there are two types of NOATDs: nonreciprocal NOATDs and reciprocal NOATDs. The nonreciprocal NOATDs work by breaking the time-inverse symmetry (breaking the Lorentz reciprocity) which requires optical nonlinearity or a magneto-optical effect [[1], [2], [3]]. In comparison, the reciprocal NOATDs break the space-inverse symmetry by diffractive asymmetric transmission [4,5]. The reciprocal NOATDs are preferable because they do not require an external magnetic field or strong incident light. A number of reciprocal NOATDs have been proposed utilizing metamaterials [6,7], photonic crystals [8,9], slab waveguides [10], surface plasmon [11], and resonant effects [12].
An ideal NOATD should have a high forward transmittance and transmission contrast ratio (defined as the ratio of the forward and backward transmittance) for arbitrary polarization states, because the polarization state is a fundamental property of light, which can be applied to encode information [29,30]. In addition, the NOATD structure should be compatible with semiconductor CMOS processes for on-chip integration. To realize this, NOATDs based on dielectric photonic crystals (PhCs) have been proposed to achieve efficient asymmetric propagation of light [26] because of the unique optical properties of PhCs that can be flexibly tuned by structure parameters and the compatibility of CMOS fabrication process. It has been demonstrated that the NOATD-based silicon PhC structures achieved polarization-independent asymmetric transmission, and the forward transmittance for TE and TM polarizations is 0.46, which is the state-of-the-art high forward transmittance [27] to the best of our knowledge. Therefore, it is necessary to further improve the forward transmittance (to be >0.5) and the contrast ratio (>0.9) to meet the stringent requirements of optical communication and quantum computing.
Herein, we theoretically demonstrate an NOATD based on a 2D PhC heterostructure, which is able to achieve asymmetric transmission of the arbitrary linearly polarized light with a high forward transmittance. The NOATD can work for arbitrarily linearly polarized light, which comprises linear combinations of TM and TE polarization states. The high forward transmittance (>0.6) and the high contrast ratio (>0.93) in the wavelength range of 1533–1634 nm with a broad bandwidth (up to 101 nm) for different linear polarizations are achieved.
Section snippets
Design of the optical asymmetric transmission device
The NOATD is composed of two PhCs; PhC1 is periodically distributed silicon cylinders embedded in silica material, and PhC2 is periodically distributed silica cylinders embedded in the silicon substrate. The refractive index of silica and silicon are n1 = 1.495 and n2 = 3.48, respectively. PhC1 has a lattice constant of a1 = 424 nm and the radius of cylinders is r1 = 60 nm, and PhC2 has a lattice constant of a2 = 600 nm and the radius of cylinders is r2 = 140 nm, which are optimized to increase
Transmission characteristic in 2D/3D heterostructure
In order to visualize the transmission of light in the NOATD, the TM and TE linearly polarized electric field distributions of the forward and backward propagating light were simulated using the finite-difference-time-domain (FDTD) method. As shown in Fig. 4(a) and (c), the forward incident light of both TM and TE polarization modes can transmit along the horizontal direction due to the self-collimation effect, which is consistent with the analysis of the EFCs. Meanwhile, the light incident
Conclusions
The NOATD achieves asymmetric transmission in the optical communication wavelength region for arbitrary linear polarizations. The forward transmittance is higher than 0.66, the backward transmittance is lower than 0.03, and the contrast ratio is higher than 0.9. As a result, the highly efficient asymmetric transmission of arbitrary linearly polarized light is achieved in the broad wavelength region (nearly 100 nm) centered at 1550 nm. In this paper, the design of the NOATD was applied to the
Author contributions
Hongming Fei, Min Wu and Han Lin: Conceived and designed the analysis; Collected the data; Contributed data or analysis tools; Performed the analysis; Wrote the paper; Modified the articles and made revision.
Yibiao Yang and Xin Liu: Conceived and designed the analysis; Collected the data; Contributed data or analysis tools; Performed the analysis; Modified the articles and made revision.
Mingda Zhang: Conceived and designed the analysis; Collected the data; Performed the analysis; Modified the
Declaration of Competing Interest and authorship conformation form
All authors have participated in (a) conception and design, or analysis and interpretation of the data; (b) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and (c) approval of the final version.
Acknowledgment
This work was sponsored by the Young Scientists Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11904255) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61575138).
References (30)
- et al.
One-way optical transmission in silicon photonic crystal heterojunction with circular and square scatterers
Phys. Lett. A
(2017) - et al.
Diode-like asymmetric transmission of circularly polarized waves
Appl. Phys. A
(2014) - et al.
Multi-frequency optical unidirectional transmission based on one-way guided mode resonance in an extremely simple dielectric grating
Opt. Commun.
(2015) - et al.
Polarization-independent waveguides in air holes photonic crystals and its slow light
Opt. Commun.
(2016) - et al.
Design and analysis of polarization independent all-optical logic gates in silicon-on-insulator photonic crystal
Opt. Commun.
(2016) - et al.
An on-chip nanophotonic reciprocal optical diode for asymmetric transmission of the circularly polarized light
Superlattices Microstruct.
(2019) - et al.
One-way optical transmission in silicon photonic crystal heterojunction with circular and square scatterers
Phys. Lett. A
(2017) - et al.
Wideband high-contrast optical diode and unidirectional beam splitters via near-infrared metallic photonic crystals
Opt. Commun.
(2013) - et al.
Polarization-independent one-way transmission by silicon annular photonic crystal antireflection structures
Opt. Commun.
(2018) - et al.
Unidirectional light beam splitting characters of the two-dimensional hybrid photonic crystal structures
Opt. Mater.
(2013)
Manifestation of the Faraday effect in non-polarized light under optical resonance conditions
Opt. Commun.
Reconfigurable nonreciprocity with a nonlinear Fano diode
Phys. Rev. B
What is — and what is not — an optical isolator
Nat. Photon.
Investigation of dual acoustic and optical asymmetric propagation in two-dimensional phoxonic crystals with grating
Opt. Mat. Express
A broadband optical diode for linearly polarized light using symmetry-breaking metamaterials
Adv. Opt. Mater.
Cited by (10)
Dynamically adjustable and high-contrast asymmetric optical transmission based on bilateral compound metallic gratings
2021, Optics and Laser TechnologyMultifunctional beam modulation based on gratings combined with additive metasurfaces
2024, Journal of Optics (United Kingdom)
- 1
These authors contributed equally.