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OPEN
Laser optomechanics Weijian Yang1, Stephen Adair Gerke1, Kar Wei Ng1, Yi Rao2, Christopher Chase2 & Connie J. Chang-Hasnain1
received: 27 March 2015 accepted: 03 August 2015 Published: 03 September 2015
Cavity optomechanics explores the interaction between optical field and mechanical motion. So far, this interaction has relied on the detuning between a passive optical resonator and an external pump laser. Here, we report a new scheme with mutual coupling between a mechanical oscillator supporting the mirror of a laser and the optical field generated by the laser itself. The optically active cavity greatly enhances the light-matter energy transfer. In this work, we use an electrically-pumped vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) with an ultra-light-weight (130 pg) high-contrast-grating (HCG) mirror, whose reflectivity spectrum is designed to facilitate strong optomechanical coupling, to demonstrate optomechanically-induced regenerative oscillation of the laser optomechanical cavity. We observe >550 nm self-oscillation amplitude of the micromechanical oscillator, two to three orders of magnitude larger than typical, and correspondingly a 23 nm laser wavelength sweep. In addition to its immediate applications as a high-speed wavelength-swept source, this scheme also offers a new approach for integrated on-chip sensors.
The coupling of an optical field and a mechanical oscillator through forces induced by light has been a subject of long-standing interest and an important tool to study fundamental physics1–6. Numerous recent experiments have used light-induced forces in optical cavities to demonstrate phenomena including laser cooling7–11 and regenerative oscillation12–17, with applications such as quantum entanglement of macroscopic objects18, ultrasensitive measurement of displacements and forces19, and all-optical RF signal processing20. The prevalent experiment apparatus consists of a passive optical cavity housing a mechanical oscillator with a population of circulating photons produced by an external low-noise continuous-wave laser. In such setups, light can induce forces on a mechanical resonator directly through radiation pressure or indirectly through photothermal forces, which result from thermal expansion of the structure under light-induced heating. Despite recent progress, regenerative mechanical oscillation has been typically limited to nanometer-scale amplitudes12–17 for oscillators using radiation pressure and limited to low-kHz-scale frequencies for oscillators using photothermal effects21. Here, we show a new configuration that integrates the mechanical oscillator as a mirror in a laser cavity, as shown in Fig. 1, producing both high-speed and large-amplitude regenerative oscillation. The difference from conventional cavity optomechanics is that the cavity contains optical gain, serving as the laser itself to drive the mechanical oscillator and thus integrating an optomechanical system in a single device. The exploration of active optomechanics has been primarily limited to theoretical studies of optomechanical cooling22. While one experimental work has studied active optomechanics phenomena in an optically-pumped VCSEL cavity with monolithic, fixed distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs), it primarily demonstrated the influence of externally-injected phonon pulses on the optical cavity23. Sustained mechanical self-oscillation in a lasing cavity has not yet been demonstrated. Collocating a VCSEL cavity and the mechanical oscillator has multiple functions. Firstly, the mechanical oscillation of the mirror results in periodic oscillations of both the laser wavelength λ and output power P, as shown in Fig. 1. Since the VCSEL supports a single on-resonance longitudinal mode over a wide range of wavelength, the optomechanical forces, whether radiation-pressure or bolometric forces, can stay enhanced over a broad wavelength range. Secondly, the negative damping induced by optomechanical forces is greatly strengthened by the delayed response of the optomechanical forces to the mechanical movement of the mirror, which can be attributed to the long lifetime of the excited 1
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. Bandwidth10, Inc., San Jose, CA 95132, USA. Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to C.J.C.H. (email: [email protected]) 2
Scientific Reports | 5:13700 | DOI: 10.1038/srep13700
1
www.nature.com/scientificreports/
Figure 1. Schematic of experimental apparatus of laser optomechanics. The optical cavity houses the laser source as well as a mechanically moveable mirror with a reflection spectrum R(λ). The laser can be either optically pumped or electrically pumped. As the mirror oscillates with displacement x(t), the laser output wavelength λ(x, t) and power P(λ , t) changes with respect to time t. The spring constant k is a function of the optical wavelength and laser output power, which illustrate the optical spring effect. The various images visualize this wavelength changes: the lasing wavelength changes from red to blue as the effective cavity length shortens due to the mirror oscillation. Depending on the mirror reflectivity and gain, the mechanical oscillation can be sustained over a large displacement range.
states in the gain medium. Furthermore, the top mirror reflectivity can be selected to have a strong dependence on the lasing wavelength, which is determined by the mirror displacement. Engineering the HCG reflectivity spectrum can thus enable design for devices exhibiting various phenomena, such as extremely large oscillation amplitude or cooling of the mirror’s mechanical modes. Self-oscillation using this scheme can thus be implemented in any mechanically-tunable laser possessing a mirror with wavelength-dependent reflectivity and a mechanical tuning system with high quality factor. The new scheme facilitates a strong power coupling between the optical radiation field and the mechanical oscillator. We term it laser optomechanics. An optomechanical laser naturally acts as a wide-range high-speed self-wavelength-swept light source. This has been long sought for high-speed energy-efficient 3D imaging, such as optical coherence tomography24 and light detection and ranging25. Laser optomechanics immediately can address the demand for improved light sources in these fields. Additionally, replacing the external high-power laser source with a low-power, microscale VCSEL provides an advantage in existing applications of optomechanical self-oscillation, particularly on-chip RF clock generation26. The optomechanical laser cavity demonstrated here uses an ultra-light weight (130 pg) high-contrast-grating (HCG) vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL)27–29 electrically-pumped lasing at 1550 nm. The HCG is an InP grating with near-wavelength period, designed to reflect > 99.5% surface-normal light and serve as the top mirror of the VCSEL30–31. The HCG platform offers substantial design flexibility. It can be designed such that the high reflection is selected for light polarized in parallel or in perpendicular to the grating bar. The former is called TE HCG, while the latter TM HCG. The optimal dimensions are quite different, particularly in thickness. For 1550 nm operation, the TE HCG is typically ~195 nm thick and the TM HCG is ~430 nm thick. In this paper, we show that lasers of both TE and TM designs exhibit laser optomechanical self-oscillation. Detailed device designs can be found in Reference 29. Additionally, the ultra-small size and thin, long support arms of the HCG mirror allow its temperature to vary significantly from that of the bulk of the chip, enabling photothermal distortion forces. As a result, the optomechanical forces described in this work include contributions from both radiation pressure and photothermal forces. The rest of the VCSEL cavity contains an active region with multiple quantum well and a distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) as the bottom mirror. Current confinement is provided with a wide-aperture proton implant, ensuring a low beam divergence angle of
OPEN
Laser optomechanics Weijian Yang1, Stephen Adair Gerke1, Kar Wei Ng1, Yi Rao2, Christopher Chase2 & Connie J. Chang-Hasnain1
received: 27 March 2015 accepted: 03 August 2015 Published: 03 September 2015
Cavity optomechanics explores the interaction between optical field and mechanical motion. So far, this interaction has relied on the detuning between a passive optical resonator and an external pump laser. Here, we report a new scheme with mutual coupling between a mechanical oscillator supporting the mirror of a laser and the optical field generated by the laser itself. The optically active cavity greatly enhances the light-matter energy transfer. In this work, we use an electrically-pumped vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) with an ultra-light-weight (130 pg) high-contrast-grating (HCG) mirror, whose reflectivity spectrum is designed to facilitate strong optomechanical coupling, to demonstrate optomechanically-induced regenerative oscillation of the laser optomechanical cavity. We observe >550 nm self-oscillation amplitude of the micromechanical oscillator, two to three orders of magnitude larger than typical, and correspondingly a 23 nm laser wavelength sweep. In addition to its immediate applications as a high-speed wavelength-swept source, this scheme also offers a new approach for integrated on-chip sensors.
The coupling of an optical field and a mechanical oscillator through forces induced by light has been a subject of long-standing interest and an important tool to study fundamental physics1–6. Numerous recent experiments have used light-induced forces in optical cavities to demonstrate phenomena including laser cooling7–11 and regenerative oscillation12–17, with applications such as quantum entanglement of macroscopic objects18, ultrasensitive measurement of displacements and forces19, and all-optical RF signal processing20. The prevalent experiment apparatus consists of a passive optical cavity housing a mechanical oscillator with a population of circulating photons produced by an external low-noise continuous-wave laser. In such setups, light can induce forces on a mechanical resonator directly through radiation pressure or indirectly through photothermal forces, which result from thermal expansion of the structure under light-induced heating. Despite recent progress, regenerative mechanical oscillation has been typically limited to nanometer-scale amplitudes12–17 for oscillators using radiation pressure and limited to low-kHz-scale frequencies for oscillators using photothermal effects21. Here, we show a new configuration that integrates the mechanical oscillator as a mirror in a laser cavity, as shown in Fig. 1, producing both high-speed and large-amplitude regenerative oscillation. The difference from conventional cavity optomechanics is that the cavity contains optical gain, serving as the laser itself to drive the mechanical oscillator and thus integrating an optomechanical system in a single device. The exploration of active optomechanics has been primarily limited to theoretical studies of optomechanical cooling22. While one experimental work has studied active optomechanics phenomena in an optically-pumped VCSEL cavity with monolithic, fixed distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs), it primarily demonstrated the influence of externally-injected phonon pulses on the optical cavity23. Sustained mechanical self-oscillation in a lasing cavity has not yet been demonstrated. Collocating a VCSEL cavity and the mechanical oscillator has multiple functions. Firstly, the mechanical oscillation of the mirror results in periodic oscillations of both the laser wavelength λ and output power P, as shown in Fig. 1. Since the VCSEL supports a single on-resonance longitudinal mode over a wide range of wavelength, the optomechanical forces, whether radiation-pressure or bolometric forces, can stay enhanced over a broad wavelength range. Secondly, the negative damping induced by optomechanical forces is greatly strengthened by the delayed response of the optomechanical forces to the mechanical movement of the mirror, which can be attributed to the long lifetime of the excited 1
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. Bandwidth10, Inc., San Jose, CA 95132, USA. Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to C.J.C.H. (email: [email protected]) 2
Scientific Reports | 5:13700 | DOI: 10.1038/srep13700
1
www.nature.com/scientificreports/
Figure 1. Schematic of experimental apparatus of laser optomechanics. The optical cavity houses the laser source as well as a mechanically moveable mirror with a reflection spectrum R(λ). The laser can be either optically pumped or electrically pumped. As the mirror oscillates with displacement x(t), the laser output wavelength λ(x, t) and power P(λ , t) changes with respect to time t. The spring constant k is a function of the optical wavelength and laser output power, which illustrate the optical spring effect. The various images visualize this wavelength changes: the lasing wavelength changes from red to blue as the effective cavity length shortens due to the mirror oscillation. Depending on the mirror reflectivity and gain, the mechanical oscillation can be sustained over a large displacement range.
states in the gain medium. Furthermore, the top mirror reflectivity can be selected to have a strong dependence on the lasing wavelength, which is determined by the mirror displacement. Engineering the HCG reflectivity spectrum can thus enable design for devices exhibiting various phenomena, such as extremely large oscillation amplitude or cooling of the mirror’s mechanical modes. Self-oscillation using this scheme can thus be implemented in any mechanically-tunable laser possessing a mirror with wavelength-dependent reflectivity and a mechanical tuning system with high quality factor. The new scheme facilitates a strong power coupling between the optical radiation field and the mechanical oscillator. We term it laser optomechanics. An optomechanical laser naturally acts as a wide-range high-speed self-wavelength-swept light source. This has been long sought for high-speed energy-efficient 3D imaging, such as optical coherence tomography24 and light detection and ranging25. Laser optomechanics immediately can address the demand for improved light sources in these fields. Additionally, replacing the external high-power laser source with a low-power, microscale VCSEL provides an advantage in existing applications of optomechanical self-oscillation, particularly on-chip RF clock generation26. The optomechanical laser cavity demonstrated here uses an ultra-light weight (130 pg) high-contrast-grating (HCG) vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL)27–29 electrically-pumped lasing at 1550 nm. The HCG is an InP grating with near-wavelength period, designed to reflect > 99.5% surface-normal light and serve as the top mirror of the VCSEL30–31. The HCG platform offers substantial design flexibility. It can be designed such that the high reflection is selected for light polarized in parallel or in perpendicular to the grating bar. The former is called TE HCG, while the latter TM HCG. The optimal dimensions are quite different, particularly in thickness. For 1550 nm operation, the TE HCG is typically ~195 nm thick and the TM HCG is ~430 nm thick. In this paper, we show that lasers of both TE and TM designs exhibit laser optomechanical self-oscillation. Detailed device designs can be found in Reference 29. Additionally, the ultra-small size and thin, long support arms of the HCG mirror allow its temperature to vary significantly from that of the bulk of the chip, enabling photothermal distortion forces. As a result, the optomechanical forces described in this work include contributions from both radiation pressure and photothermal forces. The rest of the VCSEL cavity contains an active region with multiple quantum well and a distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) as the bottom mirror. Current confinement is provided with a wide-aperture proton implant, ensuring a low beam divergence angle of
