Experimental realization of Bloch oscillations in a parity-time synthetic silicon photonic lattice.
As an important electron transportation phenomenon, Bloch oscillations have been extensively studied in condensed matter. Due to the similarity in wave properties between electrons and other quantum particles, Bloch oscillations have been observed in atom lattices, photonic lattices, and so on. One of the many distinct advantages for choosing these systems over the regular electronic systems is the versatility in engineering artificial potentials. Here by utilizing dissipative elements in a CMOS-compatible photonic platform to create a periodic complex potential and by exploiting the emerging concept of parity-time synthetic photonics, we experimentally realize spatial Bloch oscillations in a non-Hermitian photonic system on a chip level. Our demonstration may have significant impact in the field of quantum simulation by following the recent trend of moving complicated table-top quantum optics experiments onto the fully integrated CMOS-compatible silicon platform.
National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210093, China.
Ye-Long
YL
Xu
Department of Physics and Kavli Nanoscience Institute, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA.
William S
WS
Fegadolli
Laboratory of Optical Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
Lin
L
Gan
National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210093, China.|Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China.
Ming-Hui
MH
Lu
National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210093, China.|Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China.
Xiao-Ping
XP
Liu
Laboratory of Optical Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
Zhi-Yuan
ZY
Li
Department of Physics and Kavli Nanoscience Institute, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA.
Axel
A
Scherer
National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210093, China.|Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China.
Yan-Feng
YF
Chen