Hyperdimensional spin-orbit microlaser

Despite the rapid development of photonic devices and systems, on-chip information technologies are mostly limited to two-level systems due to the lack of sufficient reconfigurability. Here, we demonstrate a high-dimensional, spin-orbit microlaser for chip-scale flexible generation and manipulation of arbitrary four-level states. Two microcavities coupled through a non-Hermitian synthetic gauge field are designed to emit spin-orbit-coupled states of light with six degrees of freedom (DOFs). The vectorial state of the emitted laser beam in free space can be mapped on a Bloch hypersphere defining an SU(4) symmetry, demonstrating dynamical generation and reconfiguration of high-dimensional superposition states with high fidelity.