Feature
Harnessing On-Chip SBS
Stimulated Brillouin scattering—a familiar nonlinear effect in macroscopic systems such as fiber optics—is finding new applications in communication, quantum manipulation and microwave filtering in an era of integrated photonics.
Artist’s interpretation of stimulated Brillouin scattering on a chip. [Illustration by Christopher Poulton]
Improvements in micro- and nano-fabrication in the past decade have opened up new opportunities for applications where photonics, the study of light, meets phononics, the study of sound. Some of those applications operate at the quantum limit—for example, in high-quality optical resonators in microscopic optomechanical systems, where radiation pressure from light can affect mechanical motion and be used to cool the system. In the classical limit, meanwhile, chip-scale applications are emerging that take advantage of a familiar nonlinear optical phenomenon involving coupled light and acoustic vibrations: stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS).
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