On-chip dynamic time reversal of light in a coupled-cavity system

Abstract

We theoretically and experimentally demonstrate dynamic, all-linear time-reversal of infrared light in planar optical circuits for the first time. We propose that the oscillatory motion of the light stored in cavities can be time-reversed by fast nonadiabatic tuning of the frequency of eigenmodes of a coupled cavity system and experimentally demonstrate it using a system consisting of distant high-Q-factor two-dimensional photonic crystal cavities between which effective direct couplings are formed via line-defect waveguides. We also analyze the loss and methods to reduce the loss, as well as a theory that expands our system to realize general time-reversal operation for any input light.