Abstract

We show spontaneous mirror-symmetry breaking in two coupled photonic crystal nanolasers. This is the first experimental demonstration of such transition in micro/nanophotonics. A pitchfork bifurcation reveals two localized states, whose coexistence has been shown by optical switching with short pulses. The symmetry breaking bifurcation has been observed with only ~150 intracavity photons, which makes this system promising to investigate non-classical photon correlations and nonlinear dynamical phenomena with few photons.

© 2016 Optical Society of America