Phys.org January 19, 2022
An international team of researchers (Germany, UK, Scotland, Switzerland) has demonstrated that the Kerr effect in a high-finesse Fabry-Pérot resonator can be utilized to control the polarization of a continuous wave laser. They showed that a linearly polarized input field is converted into a left- or right-circularly-polarized field, controlled via the optical power. The observations are explained by Kerr-nonlinearity induced symmetry breaking, which splits the resonance frequencies of degenerate modes with opposite polarization handedness in an otherwise symmetric resonator. According to the researchers in the future one could arrange many of these devices onto a photonic chip to generate and control complex polarization states in telecommunication systems. The devices can also work as sensors in optical neural networks…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Illustration how the polarization in the fibre change from linear to circular. Credit: Max-Planck-Institute for the Science of Light.