2021/04/16 by Manuel Crespo-Ballesteros, Misha Sumetsky, M. Sumetsky
Physics and Astronomy · Engineering · #Advanced Fiber Laser Technologies #Photonic and Optical Devices #Mechanical and Optical Resonators
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.126.153901
We show how light can be controllably transported by light at microscale dimensions. We design a miniature device that consists of a short segment of an optical fiber coupled to transversally oriented input-output microfibers. A whispering gallery soliton is launched from the first microfiber into the fiber segment and slowly propagates along its mm-scale length. The soliton loads and unloads optical pulses at designated input-output microfibers. The speed of the soliton and its propagation direction is controlled by the dramatically small, yet feasible to introduce, permanently or all-optically, nanoscale variations of the effective fiber radius.