Phonon–polaritons in nanoscale waveguides

Abstract

We investigate the phenomena of Brillouin induced opacity in nanoscale linear waveguides and Brillouin induced transparency in nanoscale ring waveguides. The concept of phonon–polariton is required in order to get a deep understanding of such phenomena. Phonon–polaritons are coherent superposition of photons and phonons obtained in the strong coupling regime induced through stimulated Brillouin scattering in the presence of a pump field. The formation of phonon–polaritons can be observed via linear optical spectra that are calculated here using the input–output formalism. For a linear waveguide, the signature of phonon–polaritons appears as two peaks in the transmission spectrum with an opacity gap, and for a ring waveguide as two dips in the transmission spectrum with a transparency gap.