Suppressing the effect of disorders using time-reversal symmetry breaking in magneto-optical photonic crystals: An illustration with a four-port circulator

In integrated optical systems, nonreciprocal elements are indispensable devices that eliminate multi-path reflection between components. To miniaturizing these devices down to a single-wavelength scale, we study nonreciprocal effects in point defects of magneto-optical photonic crystals. The nonreciprocal effect splits degenerate mode pairs and its strength is maximized by spatially matching the magnetic domain pattern with a modal cross product. The resultant eigenmodes are a pair of counter-rotating states that lack time-reversal symmetry. Based upon these eigenmodes, we propose a micro-cavity four-port circulator constructed by coupling a magneto-optical cavity with two waveguides, where each rotating state supports light tunneling along a different direction. In the presence of strong magneto-optical couplings, due to time-reversal symmetry breaking, the performance of the isolator is fundamentally protected from the effect of small structural fluctuations. Numerical calculations demonstrate a four-port circulator with a 26 dB isolation and a roughness tolerance on the order of 0.1a, where a is the lattice constant of the crystal.