Nonlinear dynamics and chaos in an optomechanical beam.

Optical nonlinearities, such as thermo-optic mechanisms and free-carrier dispersion, are often considered unwelcome effects in silicon-based resonators and, more specifically, optomechanical cavities, since they affect, for instance, the relative detuning between an optical resonance and the excitation laser. Here, we exploit these nonlinearities and their intercoupling with the mechanical degrees of freedom of a silicon optomechanical nanobeam to unveil a rich set of fundamentally different complex dynamics. By smoothly changing the parameters of the excitation laser we demonstrate accurate control to activate two- and four-dimensional limit cycles, a period-doubling route and a six-dimensional chaos.

Porous silicon-based rugate filters.

We report an experimental study of porous silicon-based rugate filters. We performed filter apodization, following a half-apodization approach, which successfully attenuated the sidelobes at both sides of the photonic stop band. We achieved successful reduction of interference ripples through the insertion of index-matching layers on the first and last interfaces.