Abstract
Efficient and deterministic nonlinear phononic interactions could revolutionize classical and quantum information processing at radio frequencies in much the same way that nonlinear photonic interactions have at optical frequencies. Here we show that in the important class of phononic materials that are piezoelectric, deterministic nonlinear phononic interactions can be enhanced by orders of magnitude via the heterogeneous integration of high-mobility semiconductor materials. To this end, a lithium niobate and indium gallium arsenide heterostructure is utilized to produce the most efficient three- and four-wave phononic mixing to date, to the best of our knowledge. We then show that the conversion efficiency can be further enhanced by applying semiconductor bias fields that amplify the phonons. We present a theoretical model that accurately predicts the three-wave mixing efficiencies in this work and extrapolate that these nonlinearities can be enhanced far beyond what is demonstrated here by confining phonons to smaller dimensions in waveguides and optimizing the semiconductor material properties.
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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
This material is based on research sponsored in part by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) through a Young Faculty Award (YFA) under grant D23AP00174-00. The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, by DARPA, the Department of the Interior, or the US Government. This work is supported by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development program at Sandia National Laboratories, a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc. for the US Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525. This work was performed, in part, at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, an Office of Science User Facility, operated for the US Department of Energy Office of Science. This paper describes objective technical results and analysis. Any subjective views or opinions that might be expressed in the paper do not necessarily represent the views of the US Department of Energy or the US Government.
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L.H. and M.E. came up with the device concepts and experimental implementations. M.E. developed the LDV system. M.K. performed the measurements with the LDV system with input from L.H., N.O. and M.E.. L.H., B.S., M.M., S.W., S.A., T.A.F. and M.E. designed the devices and fabrication process flow. M.M., S.W., B.S. and S.A. fabricated the devices. L.H., M.K., B.S. and S.S. performed the measurements. L.H. and M.E. carried out all of the modelling. L.H., M.K. and M.E. analysed all data with input from N.O. The manuscript was written by L.H., M.K. and M.E. and all authors have given approval for the final version.
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Hackett, L., Koppa, M., Smith, B. et al. Giant electron-mediated phononic nonlinearity in semiconductor–piezoelectric heterostructures. Nat. Mater. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-024-01882-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-024-01882-4