Collective Dynamics in Optomechanical Arrays

Optomechanical systems couple light stored inside an optical cavity to the motion of a mechanical mode. Recent experiments have demonstrated setups, such as photonic crystal structures, that in principle allow one to confine several optical and vibrational modes on a single chip. Here we start to investigate the collective nonlinear dynamics in arrays of coupled optomechanical cells. We show that such “optomechanical arrays” can display synchronization, and that they can be described by an effective Kuramoto-type model.