Light-switchable quasi-BIC optical vortex generators

Optical vortices, the spatial modes of an electromagnetic wave carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM), have attracted increasing interest because of their potential for applications in optical communication with enhanced security and channel capacity. A unique optical vortex (OV) generation method has been recently proposed based on the Pancharatnam-Berry (PB) phase induced by the winding topology of polarization around a vortex singularity at bound states in the continuum (BIC). Compared with the recently emergent metasurface-based OV generators, which rely on spatial variations, the BIC-based OV generators have yielded advances in terms of design feasibility, fabrication complexity, and robustness. However, their applications in practical photonic systems are currently limited because OV generations from BIC-related devices originate from the topological property of the photonic bands and cannot be dynamically altered. Here, by leveraging the vortex topology in momentum space together with the nonlinear dynamics of silicon, we demonstrate that a silicon photonic crystal slab can realize optically switchable OV generation. In particular, the spatial tunability and the switching effects in the picosecond scale are studied using nonlinear modeling at near-infrared wavelengths. The demonstrated nontrivial topological nature of the active generators can expand the application of BIC-based devices to include ultrafast vortex beam generation, high-capacity optical communication, and mode-division multiplexing.

Files

Metadata

Work Title Light-switchable quasi-BIC optical vortex generators
Access
Open Access
Creators
  1. Yuhao Wu
  2. Lei Kang
  3. Sawyer Campbell
  4. Pingjuan L. Werner
  5. Douglas H. Werner
Keyword
  1. Optical Vortex (OV)
  2. Bound States in Continuum (BIC)
  3. Nonlinear-optics
  4. Topological Photonics
License In Copyright (Rights Reserved)
Work Type Article
Publisher
  1. SPIE
Publication Date October 3, 2022
Publisher Identifier (DOI)
  1. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2632656
Deposited September 09, 2024

Versions

Analytics

Collections

This resource is currently not in any collection.

Work History

Version 1
published

  • Created
  • Added 1219609.pdf
  • Added Creator Yuhao Wu
  • Added Creator Lei Kang
  • Added Creator Sawyer Campbell
  • Added Creator Pingjuan L. Werner
  • Added Creator Douglas H. Werner
  • Published
  • Updated
  • Updated Keyword, Publication Date Show Changes
    Keyword
    • Optical Vortex (OV), Bound States in Continuum (BIC), Nonlinear-optics, Topological Photonics
    Publication Date
    • 2022-01-01
    • 2022-10-03