Abstract

We present a simple measurement and analysis technique to determine the fraction of optical loss due to both radiation (scattering) and linear absorption in microphotonic components. The method is generally applicable to optical materials in which both nonlinear and linear absorption are present and requires only limited knowledge of absolute optical power levels, material parameters, and the structure geometry. The technique is applied to high-quality-factor ($Q=1\times {10}^6$ to $Q=5\times {10}^6$) silicon-on-insulator (SOI) microdisk resonators. It is determined that linear absorption can account for more than half of the total optical loss in the high-Q regime of these devices.

© 2007 Optical Society of America

An optical fiber-taper probe for wafer-scale microphotonic device characterization

C. P. Michael, M. Borselli, T. J. Johnson, C. Chrystal, and O. Painter
Opt. Express 15(8) 4745-4752 (2007)

Beyond the Rayleigh scattering limit in high-Q silicon microdisks: theory and experiment

Matthew Borselli, Thomas J. Johnson, and Oskar Painter
Opt. Express 13(5) 1515-1530 (2005)

Calorimetric measurement of absorption and scattering losses in optical fibers

F. T. Stone, W. B. Gardner, and C. R. Lovelace
Opt. Lett. 2(2) 48-50 (1978)

Ultra-high Q planar silicon microdisk resonators for chip-scale silicon photonics

Mohammad Soltani, Siva Yegnanarayanan, and Ali Adibi
Opt. Express 15(8) 4694-4704 (2007)

Photothermal measurement of absorption and scattering losses in thin films excited by surface plasmons

Esteban A. Domené, Francisco Balzarotti, Andrea V. Bragas, and Oscar E. Martínez
Opt. Lett. 34(24) 3797-3799 (2009)