Ultrabroadband nonreciprocal transverse energy flow of light in linear passive photonic circuits

Abstract

Using a technique, analogous to coherent population trapping in an atomic system, we propose schemes to create transverse light propagation violating left-right symmetry in a photonic circuit consisting of three coupled waveguides. The frequency windows for the symmetry breaking of the left-right energy flow span over 80 nm. Our proposed system only uses linear passive optical materials and is easy to integrate on a chip.