Abstract
Physical systems with discrete energy levels are ubiquitous in nature and are fundamental building blocks of quantum technology. Realizing controllable artifcial atom- and molecule-like systems for light would allow for coherent and dynamic control of the frequency, amplitude and phase of photons. In this work, we demonstrate a photonic molecule with two distinct energy-levels and control it by external microwave excitation. We show signature two-level dynamics including microwave induced photonic Autler-Townes splitting, Stark shift, Rabi oscillation and Ramsey interference. Leveraging the coherent control of optical energy, we show on-demand photon storage and retrieval in optical microresonators by reconfguring the photonic molecule into a bright-dark mode pair. These results of dynamic control of light in a programmable and scalable electro-optic platform open doors to applications in microwave photonic signal processing, quantum photonics in the frequency domain, optical computing concepts and simulations of complex physical systems.
Highlights
Physical systems with discrete energy levels are ubiquitous in nature and are fundamental building blocks of quantum technology
We overcome the existing performance trade-off and realize a programmable photonic two-level system that can be dynamically controlled by gigahertz microwave signals (Fig. 1a)
We create a microwave-addressable photonic molecule using a pair of integrated lithium niobate microring resonators, 80 μm in radius, patterned close to each other
Summary
Physical systems with discrete energy levels are ubiquitous in nature and are fundamental building blocks of quantum technology. We induce photonic transitions in the two-level system using high-frequency electro-optic phase modulation of the two modes. This microwave-induced photonic mode splitting is a dissipative coupling between the optical modes in analogy to the Autler–Townes splitting (Rabi splitting) in electronic systems (Fig. 2a,b) resonantly excited with continuous-wave light.
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