“The concept of dimensionality has become a central element in various fields of contemporary physics and processes in recent years,” explained study author Toshihiko Baba, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Yokohama.
While research on materials and lower-dimensional structures has been fruitful, rapid advances in topology have uncovered a host of potentially useful phenomena based on geometry extensions, even beyond the three currently in existence, he stressed.
The team fabricated a synthetic dimension in a silicon ring resonator, in which they used the same approach to build complementary metal-oxide semiconductors, a computer chip that can store some memory.
According to Baba, the device acquired a “comb-like” optical spectrum, which resulted in coupled modes corresponding to a one-dimensional model, that is, it produced a measurable property or synthetic dimension, he said.
Critically, he elaborated, his platform, although it has stacked rings, is much smaller and more compact than previous approaches, which used optical fibers connected to various components.
The flexibility of the system, including the ability to reconfigure it when necessary, complements equivalent static spaces in the real world, which could help circumvent spatial limitations and understand phenomena even beyond three dimensions, the academic said.
Next, we plan to collect all the topological and synthetic dimension photonic elements to build a topological integrated circuit, he said.
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