Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Photonic systems that steer, guide, or focus light at the microscale are usually designed under passive and lossless conditions. However, Hermiticity, which governs wave evolution in such conservative environments, strictly limits how light can propagate and flow, preventing power from orthogonal inputs to merge into a single coherent channel. Here, we show that this fundamental barrier can be overcome through a nonlinear wave-dynamic process inaccessible under linear Hermitian conditions—the conservative funneling of light. We conceptualize this effect as an all-optical thermodynamic process, whereby wave packets, regardless of origin or coherence, are carried toward the lattice center and combine into a localized ground state. We identify a parametric regime of high powers where kinetic and nonlinear photon energies facilitate the irreversible transport of optical power. Our results demonstrate >70% port-to-port efficiency in a 20-channel system, establishing a robust framework for a universal, fully conservative light funnel. Light propagation can be controlled via passive—and ideally lossless—photonic systems, where constraints are imposed by the system linearity and Hermiticity. Here, authors describe funnelling of light in a nonlinear Hermitian photonic lattice, achieving a port-to-port funnelling efficiency of 70%.
Source: Nature Communications
Institution: University of Southern California
Language: English
Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $6,990
Funders: U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Energy, W. M. Keck Foundation, Simons Foundation, University of Southern California, Ministry of Defense, U.S. Air Force, Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative, Office of Naval Research, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Army Research Office, Air Force Research Laboratory
Awards: G1147035199, G141174884, G1523888516, CLASSICAL ENTANGLEMENT IN STRUCTURED OPTICAL FIELDS, G3221375167, G3452644073, G36446433, G3762869071, G3781121586, G3879801247, G4008846448, G4381744828, G4516736450, G4633436279, NEW GRANT, G5729145195, G6005641411, G6098521345, (MURI) PROGRAMMABLE SYSTEMS WITH NON-HERMITIAN QUANTUM DYNAMICS, INTEGRATIVE IMAGING OF PLANT ROOTS DURING SYMBIOSIS WITH MYCORRHIZAL FUNGI, G6877854190, G6924198250, G7090116110, G7271624520, GENERATING OPTICAL PULSES WITH TIME-VARYING POLARIZATION STATE, G7452299184, (MURI) NOVEL LIGHT-MATTER INTERACTIONS IN TOPOLOGICALLY NON-TRIVIAL WEYL SEMIMETAL STRUCTURES AND SYSTEMS, G7999065892, G8289759875, G8639774987, G8687731952, G8876996369
OpenAlex ID: W4415806158