Hamburg 2009 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 57: Photonik I
Q 57.8: Vortrag
Freitag, 6. März 2009, 12:15–12:30, Audi-A
A fully tunable ultra-high Q whispering-gallery-mode microresonator – experimental results and use for ultralow-power photonics applications. — •Michael Pöllinger, Danny O’Shea, and Arno Rauschenbeutel — Abteilung QUANTUM, Institut für Physik, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, 55099 Mainz
We present experimental results on a fully tunable whispering-gallery-mode microresonator. Our so-called “bottle microresonator” confines light by a mechanism similar to the confinement of electrons or ions in a magnetic bottle. In contrast to microspheres and microtori, where the light is typically guided in a narrow ring along the equator of the structure, the prolate shape of the bottle microresonator gives rise to an advantageous mode structure, containing equidistantly spaced axial modes similar to a Fabry-Pérot microcavity. The frequency spacing of these modes only depends on the curvature of the resonator profile and thus allows tuning the resonator to an arbitrary frequency. This is not possible for other WGM geometries due to their large mode spacing. Moreover, the resonator yields an ultra-high intrinsic quality factor of 3.6 × 108 and a mode volume around 1300 µ m3. These values in conjunction with the tunability reveal the enormous potential of our bottle microresonator for cavity quantum electrodynamics applications and nonlinear optics. As an example, we present first results towards the use of the resonator as an all-optical-fibre-based four-port device for ultralow-power photonics applications like, e.g., all-optical switching.
Financial support by the DFG, the Volkswagen Foundation, and the ESF is gratefully acknowledged.