Tunable non-hermiticity in coupled photonic crystal cavities with asymmetric optical gain

We report a rationally designed coupled photonic crystal (PhC) cavity system that comprises two identical linear defect nanocavities, and we numerically investigate the controllable non-Hermitian optical properties of the eigenmodes of the nanocavities. Three different coupling schemes, namely, the tuning of the sizes of shared airholes, vertical shifting of one of the nanocavities, and lateral shifting of one of the nanocavities, are proposed. We examined the ability of these schemes to control the coupling strength between component cavities, which is a key factor that determines the non-Hermiticity of the system. Moreover, we introduce controlled levels of spatially asymmetric optical gain to the coupled PhC cavity by employing the vertical shifting scheme and independently tuning the gain and loss of individual nanocavities. Consequently, we successfully achieve the correspondingly tuned non-Hermitian behaviors of complex eigenfrequencies, such as the controlled emergence of phase transitions at exceptional points and the asymmetric development of amplified and decayed eigenmodes.