2025/06/13 by Tingyi Gu, Gu, Tingyi, Lorry Chang +15
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Mechanical and Optical Resonators #Microwave and Dielectric Measurement Techniques #Optics (physics.optics) #Photonic and Optical Devices
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2506.11859
openalex publication_date 2025/06/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/11 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Optical switches and bifurcation rely on the nonlinear response of materials. Here, we demonstrate linear temporal bifurcation responses in a passive multimode microresonator, with strongly coupled chaotic and whispering gallery modes or WGMs. In microdisks, the chaotic modes exhibit broadband transfer within the deformed cavities, but their transient response is less explored and yields a random output of the analog signal distributed uniformly from 0 to 1. Here, we build chaotic states by perturbing the multi-mode microring resonators with densely packed silicon nanocrystals on the waveguide surface. In vivo measurements reveal random and digitized output that ONLY populates around 0 and 1 intensity levels. The bus waveguide mode couples firstly to chaotic modes, then either dissipates or tunnels into stable WGMs. This binary pathway generates high-contrast, digitized outputs. The fully passive device enables real-time conversion of periodic clock signals into binary outputs with contrasts exceeding 12.3 dB, data rates of up to 100 Mbits per second, and 20dB dynamic range.