Boundary-dominated optomechanics in silicon metamaterial membranes
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| Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Formato: | Preprint |
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2026
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| author | González-Andrade, David Ruano, Paula Nuño Zhang, Jianhao Robin, Paul Joseph Ferhat, Hiba El Batoul Edmond, Samson Cheben, Pavel Melati, Daniele Cassan, Eric Vivien, Laurent Marris-Morini, Delphine Lanzillotti-Kimura, Norberto Daniel Alonso-Ramos, Carlos |
| author_facet | González-Andrade, David Ruano, Paula Nuño Zhang, Jianhao Robin, Paul Joseph Ferhat, Hiba El Batoul Edmond, Samson Cheben, Pavel Melati, Daniele Cassan, Eric Vivien, Laurent Marris-Morini, Delphine Lanzillotti-Kimura, Norberto Daniel Alonso-Ramos, Carlos |
| contents | Stimulated Brillouin scattering in integrated photonic waveguides enables coherent coupling between optical photons and gigahertz acoustic phonons, providing a powerful mechanism for on-chip microwave photonics and opto-acoustic signal processing. Despite theoretical predictions of ultra-strong Brillouin interactions arising from enhanced light-sound coupling at device boundaries, most state-of-the-art integrated demonstrations remain governed by bulk photoelastic effects. This limitation stems from trade-offs between optical loss, interaction with waveguide boundaries and accessible phonon frequencies associated with the use of transverse-electric optical modes coupled to horizontally breathing mechanical modes. Here we demonstrate a new approach based on transverse-magnetic optical modes coupled to vertically breathing mechanical modes in suspended silicon membranes engineered with subwavelength metamaterial claddings. In this geometry, the interaction is dominated by the moving-boundary effect occurring at smooth top and bottom interfaces, while the phonon frequency is set primarily by the membrane thickness rather than its width. We observe forward Brillouin interactions at a record frequency of 12 GHz with a gain of 7200 W$^{-1}$ m$^{-1}$ and a mechanical quality factor of 620, yielding the highest Brillouin gain-to-quality-factor ratio reported in silicon waveguides. The devices exhibit net Brillouin amplification in millimeter-scale waveguides with pump powers below 15 mW, establishing a scalable platform for high-frequency integrated opto-acoustic signal processing. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_07567 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Boundary-dominated optomechanics in silicon metamaterial membranes González-Andrade, David Ruano, Paula Nuño Zhang, Jianhao Robin, Paul Joseph Ferhat, Hiba El Batoul Edmond, Samson Cheben, Pavel Melati, Daniele Cassan, Eric Vivien, Laurent Marris-Morini, Delphine Lanzillotti-Kimura, Norberto Daniel Alonso-Ramos, Carlos Optics Stimulated Brillouin scattering in integrated photonic waveguides enables coherent coupling between optical photons and gigahertz acoustic phonons, providing a powerful mechanism for on-chip microwave photonics and opto-acoustic signal processing. Despite theoretical predictions of ultra-strong Brillouin interactions arising from enhanced light-sound coupling at device boundaries, most state-of-the-art integrated demonstrations remain governed by bulk photoelastic effects. This limitation stems from trade-offs between optical loss, interaction with waveguide boundaries and accessible phonon frequencies associated with the use of transverse-electric optical modes coupled to horizontally breathing mechanical modes. Here we demonstrate a new approach based on transverse-magnetic optical modes coupled to vertically breathing mechanical modes in suspended silicon membranes engineered with subwavelength metamaterial claddings. In this geometry, the interaction is dominated by the moving-boundary effect occurring at smooth top and bottom interfaces, while the phonon frequency is set primarily by the membrane thickness rather than its width. We observe forward Brillouin interactions at a record frequency of 12 GHz with a gain of 7200 W$^{-1}$ m$^{-1}$ and a mechanical quality factor of 620, yielding the highest Brillouin gain-to-quality-factor ratio reported in silicon waveguides. The devices exhibit net Brillouin amplification in millimeter-scale waveguides with pump powers below 15 mW, establishing a scalable platform for high-frequency integrated opto-acoustic signal processing. |
| title | Boundary-dominated optomechanics in silicon metamaterial membranes |
| topic | Optics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.07567 |