All-optical spin-selective control and shaping of frequency conversion pathways
Abstract
The interplay between optical spin and crystal symmetry provides a powerful mechanism to control light-matter interaction, enabling advances in imaging, holography, sensing, signal processing, and more. Here we reveal that this interplay can also be exploited as a programmable mechanism for selecting and shaping nonlinear frequency-conversion pathways. Using a z-cut lithium niobate thin film, we experimentally demonstrate spin-selective switching between complementary three-wave mixing pathways, where co- and cross-circular-polarization excitations activate sum- and difference-frequency generation, respectively. We further generalize this concept to establish a quantitative spin-to-frequency mapping, that encodes the pump spin composition into the generated frequencies, and enables the reverse retrieval of the pump spin state. Finally, we leverage this concept also to demonstrate mapping of spin patterns to a combination of frequency-dependent real space images, and Fourier-space diffraction patterns. These results pave the way for all-optical programable frequency-conversion and spatiotemporal nonlinear signal manipulation in free-space and integrated photonic systems.
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BibTeX
@misc{xu2026alloptical,
title = {{All-optical spin-selective control and shaping of frequency conversion pathways}},
author = {Xiaoxi Xu and Mai Tal and Danielle Ben-Haim and Tal Ellenbogen},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.22530},
eprint = {2609.22530},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.22530},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - All-optical spin-selective control and shaping of frequency conversion pathways
AU - Xiaoxi Xu
AU - Mai Tal
AU - Danielle Ben-Haim
AU - Tal Ellenbogen
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/18
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.22530
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.22530
AB - The interplay between optical spin and crystal symmetry provides a powerful mechanism to control light-matter interaction, enabling advances in imaging, holography, sensing, signal processing, and more. Here we reveal that this interplay can also be exploited as a programmable mechanism for selecting and shaping nonlinear frequency-conversion pathways. Using a z-cut lithium niobate thin film, we experimentally demonstrate spin-selective switching between complementary three-wave mixing pathways, where co- and cross-circular-polarization excitations activate sum- and difference-frequency generation, respectively. We further generalize this concept to establish a quantitative spin-to-frequency mapping, that encodes the pump spin composition into the generated frequencies, and enables the reverse retrieval of the pump spin state. Finally, we leverage this concept also to demonstrate mapping of spin patterns to a combination of frequency-dependent real space images, and Fourier-space diffraction patterns. These results pave the way for all-optical programable frequency-conversion and spatiotemporal nonlinear signal manipulation in free-space and integrated photonic systems.
ER -