Optomechanical ring resonator for efficient microwave-optical frequency conversion.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 37990000.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-023-43393-x and PMC identifier 10663453.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Phonons traveling in solid-state devices are emerging as a universal excitation for coupling different physical systems. Phonons at microwave frequencies have a similar wavelength to optical photons in solids, enabling optomechanical microwave-optical transduction of classical and quantum signals. It becomes conceivable to build optomechanical integrated circuits (OMIC) that guide both photons and phonons and interconnect photonic and phononic devices. Here, we demonstrate an OMIC including an optomechanical ring resonator (OMR), where co-resonant infrared photons and GHz phonons induce significantly enhanced interconversion. The platform is hybrid, using wide bandgap semiconductor gallium phosphide (GaP) for waveguiding and piezoelectric zinc oxide (ZnO) for phonon generation. The OMR features photonic and phononic quality factors of >1 × 10<sup>5</sup> and 3.2 × 10<sup>3</sup>, respectively. The optomechanical interconversion between photonic modes achieved an internal conversion efficiency [Formula: see text] and a total device efficiency [Formula: see text] at a low acoustic pump power of 1.6 mW. The efficient conversion in OMICs enables microwave-optical transduction for quantum information and microwave photonics applications.