Slow light and slow acoustic phonons in optophononic resonators

V. VILLAFAÑE; P. SOUBELET; A. E. BRUCHHAUSEN; N. D. LANZILLOTTI-KIMURA; B. JUSSERAND; A. LEMAITRE; A. FAINSTEIN

PHYSICAL REVIEW B - CONDENSED MATTER AND MATERIALS PHYSICS

APS

Año: 2016 vol. 94 p. 205308 - 205308

0163-1829

Slow and confined light have been exploited in optoelectronics to enhance light-matter interactions. Here wedescribe the GaAs/AlAs semiconductor microcavity as a device that, depending on the excitation conditions,either confines or slows down both light and optically generated acoustic phonons. The localization of photonsand phonons in the same place of space amplifies optomechanical processes. Picosecond laser pulses are used tostudy through time-resolved reflectivity experiments the coupling between photons and both confined and slowacoustic phonons when the laser is tuned either with the cavity (confined) optical mode or with the stop-band edge(slow) optical modes. A model that fully takes into account the modified propagation of the acoustic phonons andlight in these resonant structures is used to describe the laser detuning dependence of the coherently generatedphonon spectra and amplitude under these different modes of laser excitation. We observe that confined lightcouples only to confined mechanical vibrations, while slow light can generate both confined and slow coherentvibrations. A strong enhancement of the optomechanical coupling using confined photons and vibrations, andalso with properly designed slow photon and phonon modes, is demonstrated.