Abstract
Going beyond the canonical cavity-optomechanical system consisting of a Fabry-Perot cavity with a movable end mirror, here we explore a new paradigm in which phononic crystal waveguides are used to wire together local cavity elements to form interacting microcircuits of photons and phonons. Single cavity-waveguide elements, fabricated in the device layer of a silicon-on-insulator microchip, are used to optically excite and detect C-band (GHz) microwave phonons propagating in phononic-bandgap-guided acoustic waveguides. Interconnecting a pair of optomechanical cavities via a phonon waveguide is then used to demonstrate a tunable delay and filter for microwave-over-optical signals in the 1,500nm wavelength band. Finally, we realize a tight-binding form of mechanical coupling between distant optomechanical cavities, leading to direct phonon exchange without dissipation in the waveguide. These initial demonstrations indicate the potential of cavity-optomechanical circuits for performing coherent signal processing as well as for realizing new modalities of optical readout in distributed micromechanical sensors.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 489-496 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Nature Photonics |
Volume | 10 |
Issue number | 7 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jun 28 2016 |
Externally published | Yes |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
- Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics