Observation of twist-induced geometric phases and inhibition of optical tunneling via Aharonov-Bohm effects
Observation of twist-induced geometric phases and inhibition of optical tunneling via Aharonov-Bohm effects
复制标题
DOI：
10.1126/sciadv.aau8135
复制
发表时间：
2019-01
期刊：
影响因子：
13.6
通讯作者：
M. Parto;H. Lopez-Aviles;J. Antonio-Lopez;M. Khajavikhan;R. Amezcua-correa;D. Christodoulides
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
M. Parto;H. Lopez-Aviles;J. Antonio-Lopez;M. Khajavikhan;R. Amezcua-correa;D. Christodoulides
扭曲光纤中的一种新型几何相位通过Aharonov-Bohm效应实现了光隧道抑制。几何相无处不在地出现在许多不同的物理科学领域，从经典和分子动力学到量子力学和固态物理。在光学领域，每当偏振态在庞加莱球面上跟踪闭合轮廓时，类似的现象都会以Pancharatnam-Berry相位的形式出现。虽然这类几何相位在自由空间和导波系统中已经得到了广泛的研究，但在光子隧道排列中观察到的类似效应到目前为止还很少被探索。在这里，我们实验证明了扭转多芯光纤系统中的隧穿或耦合过程可以表现出类似于Aharonov-Bohm效应的手征几何相位积累。在我们的实验中，隧穿几何相位是通过相应的超模的干涉表现出来的。我们的工作首次在光学环境中观察到了Aharonov-Bohm对隧道效应的抑制。
A new type of geometric phase in twisted optical fibers enables optical tunneling suppression via the Aharonov-Bohm effect. Geometric phases appear ubiquitously in many and diverse areas of the physical sciences, ranging from classical and molecular dynamics to quantum mechanics and solid-state physics. In the realm of optics, similar phenomena are known to emerge in the form of a Pancharatnam-Berry phase whenever the polarization state traces a closed contour on the Poincaré sphere. While this class of geometric phases has been extensively investigated in both free-space and guided wave systems, the observation of similar effects in photon tunneling arrangements has so far remained largely unexplored. Here, we experimentally demonstrate that the tunneling or coupling process in a twisted multicore fiber system can display a chiral geometric phase accumulation, analogous to the Aharonov-Bohm effect. In our experiments, the tunneling geometric phase is manifested through the interference of the corresponding supermodes. Our work provides the first observation of Aharonov-Bohm suppression of tunneling in an optical setting.