Thesis
The spontaneous symmetry breaking of light in passive Kerr ring resonators
- Creator
- Rights statement
- Awarding institution
- University of Strathclyde
- Date of award
- 2020
- Thesis identifier
- T15858
- Qualification Level
- Qualification Name
- Department, School or Faculty
- Abstract
- Kerr ring resonators, where laser light circulates and interacts with a non linear medium, have a vast range of applications, especially in the field of metrology and telecommunications. An important feature that can occur in Kerr ring resonator set ups with two field components is a spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) of the intensities of the circulating fields. At low input powers, the two components circulate in the resonator with the same intensity, but this symmetry may spontaneously break upon a minute change of input conditions resulting in one component becoming dominant while the other is suppressed. This thesis concerns the study of this symmetry breaking phenomenon and the features that can be exploited in wide-reaching applications in photonics and quantum technologies. In early chapters we provide an introduction to passive Kerr ring resonators both in terms of the theoretical and experimental setups, and to the established model used to describe a single light beam circulating in a Kerr ring resonator, the Lugiato-Lefever equation (LLE). Systems of coupled LLEs are then used to model multiple modes circulating simultaneously in the resonator. We proceed to describe SSB in the intensities of these modes upon changes of experimentally controllable parameters. Through a linear stability analysis of the system of coupled equations we investigate the possible dynamical regimes starting from useful field oscillations and leading to the novel behaviour of periodic switching between the dominant and suppressed field components. Later to describe a wide range of experimental setups, this analysis is generalised to arbitrary self- and cross-phase modulation strengths. In subsequent chapters we describe our studies into how Temporal Cavity Solitons (TCS) evolve within the coupled LLE system. TCS have themselves a wide range of applications in the generation of, for example, optical frequency combs. It is shown for the first time and with external experimental verification, that TCS may also experience SSB in Kerr ring resonators with orthogonal polarization modes, a result which may lead to novel telecommunications applications. These symmetry broken TCS can, under certain conditions, begin to ‘breath’ in simple and complex manners and even show the periodic switching of the dominant and suppressed components previously mentioned only now in self-localised pulses instead of continuous waves. The final chapter of this thesis describes significant advances in two projects which lay the ground for further study. The first section builds on the balancing of asymmetric input conditions in a manner that restores a connected perturbed pitchfork bifurcation. This is important for applications looking to utilise interchangeable suppressed and dominant field roles in systems with physical imperfections. In the second we outline the derivation and early simulations of a new model which expands to four field components. It is shown how the enlarged degrees of freedom leads to ‘nested’ symmetry breaking bifurcations, opening new avenues for applications requiring more diversity and flexibility than just two coupled components.
- Advisor / supervisor
- Yao, Alison
- Oppo, G.-L., (Gian-Luca)
- Oppo, G.-L.(Gian-Luca)
- Resource Type
- DOI
- Date Created
- 2020
- Former identifier
- 9912982792402996
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