2020/09/16 by Arkadev Roy, Saman Jahani, Qiushi Guo +4 · 58 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Fiber Laser Technologies #Degenerate energy levels #Floquet theory #Nonlinear Photonic Systems #Nonlinear optics #Nonlinear system #OPOS #Parametric statistics #Quantum #Quantum Mechanics and Non-Hermitian Physics #Quantum optics #Symmetry (geometry) #physics.optics #quant-ph
paper · pdf · open access · doi:10.1364/optica.415569
published in Optica 8(3), 415 (Optica Publishing Group)
arxiv created 2020/09/16 · openalex created_date 2020/09/21 · openalex publication_date 2021/02/08 · arxiv updated 2021/03/23 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Engineered non-Hermitian systems featuring exceptional points (EPs) can lead to a host of extraordinary phenomena in diverse fields ranging from photonics, acoustics, opto-mechanics, and electronics to atomic physics. In optics, non-Hermitian dynamics are typically realized using dissipation and phase-insensitive gain accompanied by unavoidable fluctuations. Here, we introduce non-Hermitian dynamics of coupled optical parametric oscillators (OPOs) arising from phase-sensitive amplification and de-amplification, and show their distinct advantages over conventional non-Hermitian systems relying on laser gain and loss. OPO-based non-Hermitian systems can benefit from the instantaneous nature of the parametric gain, noiseless phase-sensitive amplification, and rich quantum and classical nonlinear dynamics. We show that two coupled OPOs can exhibit spectral anti-parity-time (anti-PT) symmetry and a EP between its degenerate and nondegenerate operation regimes. To demonstrate the distinct potentials of the coupled OPO system compared to conventional non-Hermitian systems, we present higher-order EPs with two OPOs, tunable Floquet EPs in a reconfigurable dynamic non-Hermitian system, and the generation of a squeezed vacuum around EPs, all of which are not easy to realize in other non-Hermitian platforms. We believe our results show that coupled OPOs are an outstanding non-Hermitian setting with unprecedented opportunities to realize nonlinear dynamical systems for enhanced sensing and quantum information processing.