Abstract

Ultra-high-quality (UHQ) factor optical cavities have numerous applications throughout engineering and science. Incorporating active elements into these UHQ cavities to create dynamic devices would extend their applicability; however, it is inherently difficult to develop an active UHQ device. Ultra-thin films formed from optically active polymers provide one route to overcome this limitation. In the present work, hybrid devices composed of UHQ planar optical cavities with ultra-thin films are fabricated on a silicon wafer. Using finite element method simulations, the optical field overlap between the cavity and the polymer film is modeled and experimentally verified using two polymers: poly(methyl methacrylate) and polystyrene. These hybrid devices have demonstrated material-limited Q factors above ${10}^7$.

© 2010 Optical Society of America

Replica-molded high-Q polymer microresonators

Andrea L. Martin, Deniz K. Armani, Lan Yang, and Kerry J. Vahala
Opt. Lett. 29(6) 533-535 (2004)

Thermal nonlinear effects in hybrid silica/polymer microdisks

Carsten Schmidt, Arkadi Chipouline, Thomas Käsebier, Ernst-Bernhard Kley, Andreas Tünnermann, and Thomas Pertsch
Opt. Lett. 35(20) 3351-3353 (2010)

High-Q Si microresonators formed by substrate transfer on silica waveguide wafers

W. Ng, T. Rockwood, D. Persechini, and D. Chang
Opt. Express 18(26) 27004-27015 (2010)

High-Q nanoring surface plasmon microresonator

Chang-Ling Zou, Yun-Feng Xiao, Zheng-Fu Han, Chun-Hua Dong, Xiang-Dong Chen, Jin-Ming Cui, Guang-Can Guo, and Fang-Wen Sun
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 27(12) 2495-2498 (2010)

Oscillatory thermal dynamics in high-Q PDMS-coated silica toroidal microresonators

Lina He, Yun-Feng Xiao, Jiangang Zhu, Sahin Kaya Ozdemir, and Lan Yang
Opt. Express 17(12) 9571-9581 (2009)