Bloch-Zener oscillation with engineered Floquet energy bands in synthetic temporal lattices.

Abstract

Here we experimentally demonstrate the dynamics of Bloch-Zener oscillations (BZOs) in a synthetic temporal lattice formed by the optical pulses in coupled fiber loops. By periodically modulating the phases imposed to the optical pulses in linear driven lattices, a two-band Floquet system with tunable bandgaps is realized, and the related BZOs that occurred in this system are displayed. On this basis, by manipulating the phase difference and coupling angle of the synthetic lattice, the widths of 0-gap and π-gap are tuned feasibly so that a wide variety of the interplays between Bloch oscillations and Landau-Zener tunneling (LZT) are exhibited. As an application, the temporal Mach-Zehnder interferometer utilizing BZOs is realized, where the output patterns could be modulated by the coupling rate of the synthetic lattice. This work lays the foundation for exploring BZO physics with synthetic dimensions, which may find applications in temporal pulse controlling and optical signal processing.