Coupling of Integrated Waveguide and Optomechanic Cavity for Microwave Phonon Excitation in Si Nanobeams

Abstract

The availability of high quality manufacturing for optical micro/nano patterned cavities paves the way to the development of scalable circuits and devices based on optomechanical (OM) interaction of sound and light in extremely small volumes. In this contribution, we propose a new study on OM cavities that can lead to precise control of their coupling with closely integrated waveguides, a necessary condition to enhance mode excitation and wave energy trapping, opening the possibility for many potential applications in wave guiding, filtering, confinement, and sensing. Moreover, in this way the need for bulky experimental setups and/or optical fiber coupling/excitation is avoided. At the same time, quality factors of mechanical and optical modes resonating in the cavity are optimized, together with their OM coupling coefficients: high confinement of both excitations is a prerequisite to enable their acousto-optic (AO) interaction. To this aim, the transversal size of the cavity has been parabolically tapered, with the additional benefit of separating the cavity and the integrated waveguide far from the coupling region. The finite-element method has been used to perform full-wave analysis, and an accurate discussion about the simulation setup needed to properly describe optical scattering and radiation has been provided.