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Periodic arrays of evanescently coupled optical waveguides – known as photonic lattices – are a powerful experimental platform for exploring a range of semi-classical and quantum phenomena including topological phases of matter. In these artificial crystals of optical waveguides, the dynamics of a single-particle wavefunction can be experimentally emulated by probing the evolution of optical fields along the propagation distance [1]. In many photonic lattice simulators, unlike fiber networks, the effective time-evolution of a specific input state is measured over relatively short timescales, which is set by the maximum propagation distance of the fabricated lattice, and hence, accessing long “time” dynamics constitutes a severe experimental challenge. In this work, we overcome this limitation by placing the photonic lattice inside a (linear or ring) cavity, which allows the optical state to evolve through the lattice multiple times. The accompanying detection method, which exploits a multi-pixel single-photon avalanche detector array [2], offers quasi-real time-resolved measurements after each round trip. We apply the state-recycling and time-resolved detection techniques to ultrafast-laser-fabricated photonic lattices emulating Dirac fermions and anomalous Floquet topological phases [3]. We also show how this new platform allows realizing synthetic pulsed electric fields, which can be used to drive transport within photonic lattices. This work opens a new route towards the long-time-detection of the analogous wavefunction in engineered photonic lattices and the realization of hybrid analog-digital simulators.
References:
1. Nature 424, 817 (2003)
2. Custom Integrated Circuits Conference, CICC’09. IEEE, 77–80 (2009)
3. arXiv:1712.08145
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