Erlangen 2022 – scientific programme

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 42: Laser and Laser Applications

Q 42.9: Poster

Wednesday, March 16, 2022, 16:30–18:30, P

Coupling in optical Microcavity Arrays — •Tom Rodemund, Lukas Seemann, and Martina Hentschel — TU Chemnitz, Chemnitz, Germany

Optical microcavities have proven their potential as microlasers. Their circular shape promotes the formation of whispering-gallery modes (WGM), which possess the high Q factor necessary for efficient lasing operation. However, the directionality of the far field of single cavities can still be improved by utilizing an array of several cavities. This gives rise to new phenomena due to the coupling between the constituents of the array. This contribution investigates possible avenues in which the coupling taking place can be characterized.

When two microdisc cavities approach one another, eigenfrequency splitting takes place. Considering discs with radius R and a distance between them D, the splitting is significant for D/R < 0.3. At that point, the distance is low enough for the WGMs to meaningfully pass from one resonator to the other by optical tunneling, which indicates strong coupling between the resonators. The influence of this on the modes is apparent in the Husimi functions of the cavities, which are a phase space representation of the system. The coupling is also reflected in the time a signal starting in one resonator needs to get back to its origin. These tools are applied to arrays consisting of verious amounts of oscillators, where the exact array size can have a pronounced influence on the system dynamics.