Bandwidth-Tunable Optical Amplifier with Narrowband Filtering Function Enabled by Parity-Time Symmetry at Exceptional Points

Integrated optical amplifiers are the building blocks of on-chip photonic systems, and they are often accompanied by a narrowband filter to limit noise. In this sense, a bandwidth-tunable optical amplifier with narrowband filtering function is crucial for on-chip optical circuits and radio frequency...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Kunpeng Zhu, Xiaoyan Zhou, Yinxin Zhang, Zhanhua Huang, Lin Zhang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2024-12-01
Series:Photonics
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/11/12/1188
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Integrated optical amplifiers are the building blocks of on-chip photonic systems, and they are often accompanied by a narrowband filter to limit noise. In this sense, a bandwidth-tunable optical amplifier with narrowband filtering function is crucial for on-chip optical circuits and radio frequency systems. The intrinsic loss and coupling coefficients between resonator and waveguide inherently limit the bandwidth. The parity-time symmetric coupled microresonators operating at exceptional points enable near zero bandwidth. In this study, we propose a parity-time symmetric coupled microresonators system operating near EPs to achieve a bandwidth of 46.4 MHz, significantly narrower than bandwidth of 600.0 MHz and 743.2 MHz achieved by two all-pass resonators with identical gain/loss coefficients. This system also functions as an optical bandwidth-tunable filter. The bandwidth tuning ranges from 175.7 MHz to 7.8 MHz as gain coefficient adjusts from 0.2 dB/cm to 0.4 dB/cm. Our scheme presents a unique method to obtain narrow bandwidth from two broadband resonators and serves as an optical bandwidth-tunable filter, thereby paving a new avenue for exploring non-Hermitian light manipulation in all-optical integrated devices.
ISSN:2304-6732