Chiral exceptional point and coherent suppression of backscattering in silicon microring with low loss Mie scatterer

Abstract

Non-Hermitian systems with their spectral degeneracies known as exceptional points (EPs) have been explored for lasing, controlling light transport, and enhancing a sensor’s response. A ring resonator can be brought to an EP by controlling the coupling between its frequency degenerate clockwise and counterclockwise traveling modes. This has been typically achieved by introducing two or more nanotips into the resonator’s mode volume. While this method provides a route to study EP physics, the basic understanding of how the nanotips’ shape and size symmetry impact the system’s non-Hermicity is missing, along with additional loss from both in-plane and out-of-plane scattering. The limited resonance stability poses a challenge for leveraging EP effects for switches or modulators, which requires stable cavity resonance and fixed laser-cavity detuning. Here we use lithographically defined asymmetric and symmetric Mie scatterers, which enable subwavelength control of wave transmission and reflections without deflecting to additional radiation channels. We show that those pre-defined Mie scatterers can bring the system to an EP without post tuning, as well as enable chiral light transport within the resonator. Counterintuitively, the Mie scatterer results in enhanced quality factor measured on the transmission port, through coherently suppressing the backscattering from the waveguide surface roughness. The proposed device platform enables pre-defined chiral light propagation and backscattering-free resonances, needed for various applications such as frequency combs, solitons, sensing, and other nonlinear optical processes such as photon blockade, and regenerative oscillators. Graphical Abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.].