Polarimetric parity-time symmetry in a photonic system

Lingzhi Li; Yuan Cao; Yanyan Zhi; Jiejun Zhang; Yuting Zou; Xinhuan Feng; Bai-Ou Guan; Jianping Yao

doi:10.1038/s41377-020-00407-3

Polarimetric parity-time symmetry in a photonic system

Light Sci Appl. 2020 Sep 27:9:169. doi: 10.1038/s41377-020-00407-3. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Lingzhi Li¹, Yuan Cao¹, Yanyan Zhi¹, Jiejun Zhang¹, Yuting Zou¹, Xinhuan Feng¹, Bai-Ou Guan¹, Jianping Yao^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Optical Fiber Sensing and Communications, Institute of Photonics Technology, Jinan University, Guangzhou, 511442 China.
² Microwave Photonics Research Laboratory, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5 Canada.

Abstract

Parity-time (PT) symmetry has attracted intensive research interest in recent years. PT symmetry is conventionally implemented between two spatially distributed subspaces with identical localized eigenfrequencies and complementary gain and loss coefficients. The implementation is complicated. In this paper, we propose and demonstrate that PT symmetry can be implemented between two subspaces in a single spatial unit based on optical polarimetric diversity. By controlling the polarization states of light in the single spatial unit, the localized eigenfrequencies, gain, loss, and coupling coefficients of two polarimetric loops can be tuned, leading to PT symmetry breaking. As a demonstration, a fiber ring laser based on this concept supporting stable and single-mode lasing without using an ultranarrow bandpass filter is implemented.

Keywords: Fibre lasers; Optical techniques.

Abstract

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