Bespoke mirror fabrication for quantum simulation with light in open-access microcavities
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Nyman, Robert
Smith, Jason
Trichet, Aurelien
Ash, Benjamin
Walker, Benjamin
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
In this work, we use focused ion beam (FIB) milling to generate custom mirror shapes for quantum simulation in optical microcavities. In the paraxial limit, light in multimode optical microcavities follows an equation of motion which is equivalent to Schrödinger’s equation, with the surface topography of the mirrors playing the role of the potential energy landscape. FIB milling allows us to engineer a wide variety of trapping potentials for microcavity light, through exquisite control over the mirror topography, including 2D box, 1D waveguide, and Mexican hat potentials. The 2D box potentials are sufficiently flat over tens of microns, that the optical modes of the cavity, found by solving Schrödinger’s equation on the measured cavity topography, are standing-wave modes of the box, rather than localised to deviations. The predicted scattering loss due to surface roughness measured using atomic force microscopy is found to be 177 parts per million, which corresponds to a cavity finesse of 2.2 × 104 once other losses have been taken into account. Spectra from dye-filled microcavities formed using these features show thermalised light in flat 2D potentials close to dye resonance, and spectrally-resolved cavity modes at the predicted frequencies for elliptical potentials. These results also represent a first step towards realising superfluid light and quantum simulation in arbitrary-shaped optical microcavities using FIB milling.
Date Issued
2021-03-22
Date Acceptance
2021-03-09
Citation
Optics Express, 2021, 29 (7), pp.10800-10810
ISSN
1094-4087
Publisher
Optical Society of America (OSA)
Start Page
10800
End Page
10810
Journal / Book Title
Optics Express
Volume
29
Issue
7
Copyright Statement
© 2021. Published by The Optical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Further
distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal
citation, and DOI.
distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal
citation, and DOI.
License URL
Sponsor
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC)
Identifier
https://www.osapublishing.org/oe/fulltext.cfm?uri=oe-29-7-10800&id=449448
Grant Number
EP/S000755/1
Subjects
0205 Optical Physics
0906 Electrical and Electronic Engineering
1005 Communications Technologies
Optics
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2021-03-22