Flexible Manipulation of Lasing Modes in an Erbium-Doped Microcavity via an Add–Drop Configuration

Abstract

Whispering-gallery-mode microlaser is an important candidate for various applications such as optical sensing, spectroscopy, and communications. The ability to manipulate lasing modes and even to realize single-mode lasing emission is highly desirable. Here, we realize flexible manipulation of lasing modes in an erbium-doped silica microbottle cavity via an add−drop configuration, which possesses highly nondegenerate modes along its axial direction. An ultralow lasing threshold down to 89 μW is achieved in the erbium-doped microbottle cavity with ultrahigh quality factors up to 10 8 via a novel doping method. We realize selective suppression and extraction of the lasing modes by coupling a probe microfiber at different axial positions of the microbottle cavity. Importantly, a single-mode microlaser with a high side-mode suppression ratio up to 24 dB is achieved without mode hopping. Our scheme demonstrated here may have various promising applications ranging from single-mode lasing emission and switchable microlaser to optical communication.

Room-temperature Continuous-Wave Upconversion White Microlaser Using a Rare-earth-Doped Microcavity

“…First, a Er-Yb-PMMA solution is made by mixing thulium nitrate hexahydrate (Tm (NO 3 ) 3 ·6H 2 O, 99.9%, Macklin), erbium nitrate pentahydrate (Er (NO 3 ) 3 ·5H 2 O, 99.9%, Macklin), ytterbium nitrate pentahydrate (Yb (NO 3 ) 3 ·5H 2 O, 99.99%, Macklin), PMMA (TCI), and acetone (AR, Shanghai Hushi) with a weight ratio of 1:50:40:790:20790. Second, a single-mode optical fiber was processed by a carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) fabrication platform to form a microbottle cavity. , Third, the microbottle was dipped into the prepared Er-Yb-PMMA solution and then was drawn out. After evaporation, a Tm-Er-Yb-PMMA film will homogeneously form on the surface of the microbottle.…”

“…Second, a singlemode optical fiber was processed by a carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) fabrication platform to form a microbottle cavity. 37,52 Third, the microbottle was dipped into the prepared Er-Yb-PMMA solution and then was drawn out. After evaporation, a Tm-Er-Yb-PMMA film will homogeneously form on the surface of the microbottle.…”

On‐Chip Light–Atom Interactions: Physics and Applications

“…Compared to other on-chip structures, the specific characteristic ring structures of optical microcavities enable them to confine light into small volumes in order to enhance light-atom interactions by resonant recirculation implying the natural frequency selection function. There are remarkable types of microcavities with different Q factor levels (which are proportional to the confinement time in units of the optical period [129] ), such as the Fabry-Perot bulk optical cavity, [130][131][132] microsphere, [133,134] microtoroid, [135][136][137][138][139] micropost, [140][141][142][143] microdisk, [144][145][146] semiconductor, [147][148][149][150][151][152] polymer add-drop filter, [153][154][155] photonic crystal cavity, [156][157][158][159][160][161] and microring cavity. [162][163][164][165] On the one hand, these microcavities can be used to generate orbital angular momentum beams owing to their resonant power enhancement and natural frequency selection characteristics.…”

Visible nonlinear stimulated scatterings generated in a carbon disulfide filled microbubble cavity

“…The discovery of multi-wavelength visible lasers in liquid-core fibers [7] , micro-ring cavities [8] , micro-tubular cavities [9] , micro-sphere cavities [10] , and other micro-resonant cavities have been reported. It is easier to achieve multi-wavelength lasers in microcavity using various types of dyes [11,12] or co-doped rare earth ions [13,14,15] as gain media, while it is difficult to achieve multi-wavelength laser for a single organic solution [16] .…”