Nonreciprocal spontaneous parametric process

Changbiao Li; Jiaqi Yuan; Ruidong He; Jiawei Yu; Yanpeng Zhang; Min Xiao; Keyu Xia; Zhaoyang Zhang

doi:10.1038/s41377-025-01844-8

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Nonreciprocal spontaneous parametric process

Original Articles

- Nonreciprocal spontaneous parametric process
- Light: Science & Applications Vol. 14, Issue 8, Pages: 2121-2128(2025)
- Affiliations：
  
  1.Key Laboratory for Physical Electronics and Devices of the Ministry of Education & Shaanxi Key Lab of Information Photonic Technique, School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Faculty of Electronic and Information Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China
  2.Department of Physics, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA
  3.College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, and School of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China
- Author bio：
  
  Keyu Xia (keyu.xia@nju.edu.cn)
  Zhaoyang Zhang (zhyzhang@xjtu.edu.cn)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/s41377-025-01844-8
  CLC：
- Received：14 September 2024，
  
  Revised：09 March 2025，
  
  Accepted：21 March 2025，
  
  Published Online：19 May 2025，
  
  Published：31 August 2025
- Accepted：
Scan QR Code
Li, C. B. et al. Nonreciprocal spontaneous parametric process. Light: Science & Applications, 14, 2121-2128 (2025).
DOI：

Li, C. B. et al. Nonreciprocal spontaneous parametric process. Light: Science & Applications, 14, 2121-2128 (2025). DOI： 10.1038/s41377-025-01844-8.

摘要

Abstract

Mediated by the interactions with quantum vacuum fields

a probe laser field propagating in a nonlinear optical medium can generate new pair of light fields over a broad spectral range via spontaneous parametric process. Such process is inherently independent of the incident direction of light and reciprocal thus far

due to the direction-independent field-vacuum interactions. In this work

we experimentally demonstrate within sodium atomic vapors that such spontaneous parametric process can be nonreciprocal by unidirectionally coupling it to another pumped four-wave mixing process. Thanks to the broad bandwidth of the spontaneous parametric process

in combination with the Doppler and power-induced broadening of atomic energy levels

we achieve optical isolation with isolation ratio > 25 dB over a bandwidth larger than 100 GHz. Considering that both spontaneous parametric processes and the pumped four-wave mixing have been realized in diverse solid photonic platforms

the demonstrated concept can motivate further explorations in the design of integrated magnetic-free broadband optical nonreciprocity via the interactions between nonlinear optical processes.

关键词

Keywords

references

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