Optomechanically Induced Benjamin-Feir Instability

Benjamin-Feir instability, which is originally discovered in hydrodynamics and plasma physics, has become a central process of nonlinear physics over the past decades. On-chip solid-state devices with controllable Benjamin-Feir instability can exhibit a rich set of spatio-temporal dynamics that are inherently sensitive to their initial distribution, which are vital for force sensors and information processing. By exploiting the nonlinear photonic evolution and localization in a micro-fabricated optomechanical chain, the direct signal of optomechanically induced Benjamin-Feir instability is identified within the reach of current experimental techniques. A spatio-temporal dynamical theory of optomechanically induced Benjamin-Feir instability is represented, which provides a quantitative interpretation of the exponential growth characteristics. Numerical calculations of the spatio-temporal dynamics in the optomechanical chain are in excellent agreement with this theory. Optomechanically induced Benjamin-Feir instability may entail a wide range of intriguing phenomena and find applications in on-chip manipulations of light propagation and precision measurements due to their exponential growth characteristics.