Evaporation characteristics of Er3+-doped silica fiber and its application in the preparation of whispering gallery mode lasers.

In this work, the concentration of rare-earth ions in doped silica whispering gallery lasers (WGLs) is controlled by evaporation. The fabrication of WGLs is used to experimentally evaluate the evaporation rate (mol/µm) and ratio (mol/mol) of erbium and silica lost from a doped fiber during heating. Fixed lengths of doped silica fiber are spliced to different lengths of undoped fiber and then evaporated by feeding into the focus of a CO2 laser. During evaporation, erbium ions are precipitated in the doped silica fiber to control the erbium concentration in the remaining SiO2, which is melted into a microsphere. By increasing the length of the undoped section, a critical point is reached where effectively no ions remain in the glass microsphere. The critical point is found using the spectra of the whispering gallery modes in microspheres with equal sizes. From the critical point, it is estimated that, for a given CO2 laser power, 6.36 × 10-21 mol of Er3+ is lost during the evaporation process for every cubic micron of silica fiber. This is equivalent to 1.74 × 10-7 mol of Er3+ lost per mol of SiO2 evaporated. This result facilitates the control of the doping concentration in WGLs and provides insight into the kinetics of laser-induced evaporation of doped silica.

Packaged whispering gallery resonator device based on an optical nanoantenna coupler.

In this work, we present a packaged whispering gallery mode (WGM) device based on an optical nanoantenna as the coupler and a glass microsphere as the resonator. The microspheres were fabricated from either SiO2 fiber or Er3+-doped fiber, the latter creating a WGM laser with a threshold of 93 µW at 1531 nm. The coupler-resonator WGM device was packaged in a glass capillary. The performance of the packaged microlaser was characterized, with lasing emission both excited in and collected from the WGM cavity via the nanoantenna. The packaged system provides isolation from environmental contamination, a small size, and unidirectional coupling while maintaining a high quality (Q-) factor (∼108).

Polarization-Controlled Cavity Input-Output Relations.

Cavity input-output relations (CIORs) describe a universal formalism relating each of the far-field amplitudes outside the cavity to the internal cavity fields. Conventionally, they are derived based on a weak-scattering approximation. In this context, the amplitude of the off-resonant field remains nearly unaffected by the cavity, with the high coupling efficiency into cavity modes being attributed to destructive interference between the transmitted (or reflected) field and the output field from the cavity. In this Letter, we show that, in a whispering gallery resonator-waveguide coupled system, in the strong-scattering regime, the off-resonant field approaches to zero, but more than 90% coupling efficiency can still be achieved due to the Purcell-enhanced channeling. As a result, the CIORs turn out to be essentially different than in the weak-scattering regime. With this fact, we propose that the CIOR can be tailored by controlling the scattering strength. This is experimentally demonstrated by the transmission spectra exhibiting either bandstop or bandpass-type behavior according to the polarization of the input light field.

Excitation of whispering gallery modes with a "point-and-play," fiber-based, optical nano-antenna.

We demonstrate the excitation and detection of whispering gallery modes in optical microresonators using a "point-and-play," fiber-based, optical nano-antenna. The coupling mechanism is based on cavity-enhanced Rayleigh scattering. Collected spectra exhibit Lorentzian dips, Fano shapes, or Lorentzian peaks, with a coupling efficiency around 13%. The spectra are characterized by the coupling gap, polarization, and fiber tip position. The coupling method is simple, low-cost and, most importantly, the Q-factor can be maintained at 108 over a wide coupling range, thereby making it suitable for metrology, sensing, or cavity quantum electrodynamics experiments.

Pump induced lasing suppression in Yb:Er-doped microlasers.

A pump source is one of the essential prerequisites in order to achieve lasing in a system, and, in most cases, a stronger pump leads to higher laser power at the output. However, this behavior may be suppressed if two pump beams are used. In this work, we show that lasing around the 1600 nm band can be suppressed completely if two pumps, at wavelengths of 980 nm and 1550 nm, are applied simultaneously to an Yb:Er-doped microlaser, whereas it can be revived by switching one of them off. This phenomenon can be explained by assuming that the presence of one pump (980 nm) changes the role of the other pump (1550 nm); more specifically, the 1550 nm pump starts to consume the population inversion instead of increasing it when the 980 nm pump power exceeds a certain value. As a result, the two pump fields lead to a closed-loop transition within the gain medium (i.e., the erbium ions). This study unveils an interplay similar to coherence effects between different pump pathways, thereby providing a reference for designing the laser pump, and may have applications in lasing control.

All-optical nanopositioning of high-Q silica microspheres.

A tunable, all-optical, coupling method is realised for a high-Q silica microsphere and an optical waveguide. By means of a novel optical nanopositioning method, induced thermal expansion of an asymmetric microsphere stem for laser powers up to 211 mW is observed and used to fine tune the microsphere-waveguide coupling. Microcavity displacements ranging from (0.61 ± 0.13) - (3.49 ± 0.13) µm and nanometer scale sensitivities varying from (2.81 ± 0.08) - (17.08 ± 0.76) nm/mW, with an apparent linear dependency of coupling distance on stem laser heating, are obtained. Using this method, the coupling is altered such that the different coupling regimes are achieved.

Tunable erbium-doped microbubble laser fabricated by sol-gel coating.

In this work, we show that the application of a sol-gel coating renders a microbubble whispering gallery resonator into an active device. During the fabrication of the resonator, a thin layer of erbium-doped sol-gel is applied to a tapered microcapillary, then a microbubble with a wall thickness of 1.3 µm is formed with the rare earth ions diffused into its wall. The doped microbubble is pumped at 980 nm and lases in the emission band of the Er3+ ions at 1535 nm. The laser wavelength can be shifted by aerostatic pressure tuning of the whispering gallery modes of the microbubble. Up to 240 pm tuning is observed with 2 bar of applied pressure. We also show that the doped microbubble could be used as a compact, tunable laser source.

High-Q, ultrathin-walled microbubble resonator for aerostatic pressure sensing.

Sensors based on whispering gallery resonators have minute footprints and can push achievable sensitivities and resolutions to their limits. Here, we use a microbubble resonator, with a wall thickness of 500 nm and an intrinsic Q-factor of 10(7) in the telecommunications C-band, to investigate aerostatic pressure sensing via stress and strain of the material. The microbubble is made using two counter-propagating CO(2) laser beams focused onto a microcapillary. The measured sensitivity is 19 GHz/bar at 1.55 µm. We show that this can be further improved to 38 GHz/bar when tested at the 780 nm wavelength range. In this case, the resolution for pressure sensing can reach 0.17 mbar with a Q-factor higher than 5 × 10(7).

Degenerate four-wave mixing in a silica hollow bottle-like microresonator.

A hollow, bottle-like microresonator (BLMR) was fabricated from a microcapillary with a nearly parabolic profile. From simulations at 1.55 µm the fundamental bottle mode is shown to be in the anomalous dispersion regime, while the conventional whispering gallery mode, confined to the center of the BLMR, is in the normal dispersion regime. Therefore, we have experimentally shown that, for a BLMR with a diameter of 102 um, degenerate four-wave mixing can only be observed by judicious selection of the tapered fiber coupling position. Dispersion tuning in such a system is also briefly discussed theoretically. BLMRs are promising devices for the implementation of sparsely distributed, widely spanned frequency combs at the telecommunications C-band.

Four-wave mixing parametric oscillation and frequency comb generation at visible wavelengths in a silica microbubble resonator.

Frequency comb generation in microresonators at visible wavelengths has found applications in a variety of areas such as metrology, sensing, and imaging. To achieve Kerr combs based on four-wave mixing in a microresonator, dispersion must be in the anomalous regime. In this Letter, we demonstrate dispersion engineering in a microbubble resonator (MBR) fabricated by a two-CO2 laser beam technique. By decreasing the wall thickness of the MBR to 1.4 µm, the zero dispersion wavelength shifts to values shorter than 764 nm, making phase matching possible around 765 nm. With the optical Q-factor of the MBR modes being greater than 107, four-wave mixing is observed at 765 nm for a pump power of 3 mW. By increasing the pump power, parametric oscillation is achieved, and a frequency comb with 14 comb lines is generated at visible wavelengths.

Temperature independent tuning of whispering gallery modes in a cryogenic environment.

A new tuning method for tuning whispering gallery modes (WGMs) in a cryogenic environment is presented. Within a home-made exchange gas cryostat the applicability of pressure tuning in microbubbles at liquid nitrogen (LN) temperature is shown. The general thermal shift and tuning behavior of borosilicate microbubbles is theoretically analyzed and compared to experimental data. We show that stress/strain tuning using compressed gas is widely unaffected by system temperature.

Terahertz tuning of whispering gallery modes in a PDMS stand-alone, stretchable microsphere.

We report on tuning the optical whispering gallery modes (WGMs) in a poly dimethyl siloxane-based (PDMS) microsphere resonator by more than 1 THz. The PDMS microsphere system consists of a solid spherical resonator directly formed with double stems on either side. The stems act like tie-rods for simple mechanical stretching of the microresonator, resulting in tuning of the WGMs by one free spectral range. Further investigations demonstrate that the WGM shift has a higher sensitivity (0.13 nm/µN) to an applied force when the resonator is in its maximally stretched state compared to its relaxed state.

Active Control of Plasmonic-Photonic Interactions in a Microbubble Cavity.

Active control of light-matter interactions using nanophotonic structures is critical for new modalities for solar energy production, cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED), and sensing, particularly at the single-particle level, where it underpins the creation of tunable nanophotonic networks. Coupled plasmonic-photonic systems show great promise toward these goals because of their subwavelength spatial confinement and ultrahigh-quality factors inherited from their respective components. Here, we present a microfluidic approach using microbubble whispering-gallery mode cavities to actively control plasmonic-photonic interactions at the single-particle level. By changing the solvent in the interior of the microbubble, control can be exerted on the interior dielectric constant and, thus, on the spatial overlap between the photonic and plasmonic modes. Qualitative agreement between experiment and simulation reveals the competing roles mode overlap and mode volume play in altering coupling strengths.

Toward Real-Time Monitoring and Control of Single Nanoparticle Properties with a Microbubble Resonator Spectrometer.

Optical microresonators have widespread application at the frontiers of nanophotonic technology, driven by their ability to confine light to the nanoscale and enhance light-matter interactions. Microresonators form the heart of a recently developed method for single-particle photothermal absorption spectroscopy, whereby the microresonators act as microscale thermometers to detect the heat dissipated by optically pumped, nonluminescent nanoscopic targets. However, translation of this technology to chemically dynamic systems requires a platform that is mechanically stable, solution compatible, and visibly transparent. We report microbubble absorption spectrometers as a versatile platform that meets these requirements. Microbubbles integrate a two-port microfluidic device within a whispering gallery mode microresonator, allowing for the facile exchange of chemical reagents within the resonator's interior while maintaining a solution-free environment on its exterior. We first leverage these qualities to investigate the photoactivated etching of single gold nanorods by ferric chloride, providing a method for rapid acquisition of spatial and morphological information about nanoparticles as they undergo chemical reactions. We then demonstrate the ability to control nanorod orientation within a microbubble through optically exerted torque, a promising route toward the construction of hybrid photonic-plasmonic systems. Critically, the reported platform advances microresonator spectrometer technology by permitting room-temperature, aqueous experimental conditions, which may be used for time-resolved single-particle experiments on non-emissive, nanoscale analytes engaged in catalytically and biologically relevant chemical dynamics.

Glass-on-Glass Fabrication of Bottle-Shaped Tunable Microlasers and their Applications.

We describe a novel method for making microbottle-shaped lasers by using a CO2 laser to melt Er:Yb glass onto silica microcapillaries or fibres. This is realised by the fact that the two glasses have different melting points. The CO2 laser power is controlled to flow the doped glass around the silica cylinder. In the case of a capillary, the resulting geometry is a hollow, microbottle-shaped resonator. This is a simple method for fabricating a number of glass whispering gallery mode (WGM) lasers with a wide range of sizes on a single, micron-scale structure. The Er:Yb doped glass outer layer is pumped at 980 nm via a tapered optical fibre and WGM lasing is recorded around 1535 nm. This structure facilitates a new way to thermo-optically tune the microlaser modes by passing gas through the capillary. The cooling effect of the gas flow shifts the WGMs towards shorter wavelengths and thermal tuning of the lasing modes over 70 GHz is achieved. Results are fitted using the theory of hot wire anemometry, allowing the flow rate to be calibrated with a flow sensitivity as high as 72 GHz/sccm. Strain tuning of the microlaser modes by up to 60 GHz is also demonstrated.

Short vertical tube furnace for the fabrication of doped glass microsphere lasers.

We report on the design of an electric tube furnace that can be used for the fabrication of doped glass microsphere lasers. The tube furnace has a short hot zone of length 133 mm and is based on a quartz tube design. Doped laser glass particles, specifically Er:Yb phosphate glass (IOG-2), of approximately 1 microm diameter are blown into the furnace using a 60 ml syringe and microspheres ranging in size from 10 to 400 microm are collected at the output of the tube furnace in a Petri dish. The furnace operates at a wall temperature of approximately 900 degrees C and is capable of making microspheres from glasses with glass transition temperatures of at least 375 degrees C. High quality (Q approximately 10(5)) whispering gallery modes have been excited within the microspheres by optically pumping at 978 nm via a tapered optical fiber.