High Q silica microbubble resonators fabricated by arc discharge

Berneschi, Simone; Farnesi, Daniele; Cosi, Franco; Conti, G. Nunzi; Pelli, S.; Righini, Giancarlo C.; Soria, Silvia

doi:10.1364/ol.36.003521

Cited by 115 publications

(80 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Bubbles along microcapillaries 7,8,16,17 and on-chip 18 devices can possess excellent optical transmission 7,8,16,17 together with low mechanical dissipation while allowing liquid to be placed inside the device. Additionally, such glass bubbles can benefit from optically excited vibrations as no electrodes are needed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cavity optomechanics on a microfluidic resonator with water and viscous liquids

et al. 2013

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Currently, optical or mechanical resonances are commonly used in microfluidic research. However, optomechanical oscillations by light pressure were not shown with liquids. This is because replacing the surrounding air with water inherently increases the acoustical impedance and hence, the associated acoustical radiation losses. Here, we bridge between microfluidics and optomechanics by fabricating a hollow-bubble resonator with liquid inside and optically exciting vibrations with 100 MHz rates using only mW optical-input power. This constitutes the first time that any microfluidic system is optomechanically actuated. We further prove the feasibility of microfluidic optomechanics on liquids by demonstrating vibrations on organic fluids with viscous dissipation higher than blood viscosity while measuring density changes in the liquid via the vibration frequency shift. Our device will enable using cavity optomechanics for studying non-solid phases of matter, while light is easily coupled from the outer dry side of the capillary and fluid is provided using a standard syringe pump. Keywords: nonlinear optics; optical materials and devices; optomechanics INTRODUCTION A major application of optical resonators is in the field of sensing where microresonators were used to sense biomarkers in serum 1 and to detect viruses and nanoparticles 2-4 in an aqueous environment. With similar motivation and in a parallel effort, mechanical resonators were used to weigh biomolecules and cells. 5,6 Just like we use more than one sense (e.g., eyes and ears) to detect hazards, optomechanics might suggest a bridge between the seemingly parallel optical and mechanical detection fields. The recent availability of liquid containing bubble shaped resonators, 7,8 in combination with optomechanical vibrations at .GHz rate, 9-12 might pave the way for ultrasound investigations on analytes in liquids. Nevertheless, cavity optomechanics on non-solid phases of material was never before demonstrated.One of the major 'show stoppers' on the way to microfluidic optomechanics originates from the fact that water has acoustical impedance that is more than 4000 times larger than air. Hence, naively immersing optomechanical devices in water will accordingly increase the acoustical radiation losses. Liquid submerged optomechanical oscillators are therefore challenging, as sound will tend to escape from the cavity by radiating out rather than being confined to the resonator. Here, we confine the high-impedance water inside 6,13 a silica-bubble resonator so that its acoustical quality factor is minimally affected. In this manner, when both mechanical and optical quality factors, Q m and Q O , of microdevices are sufficiently leveraged, their optical and mechanical modes can be parametrically coupled, allowing the optical excitation of vibrations. 14 In spherical shapes 9 such as our bubble,

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cavity optomechanics on a microfluidic resonator with water and viscous liquids

et al. 2013

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“…This is mainly because of the dramatic increase in signal-to-noise ratio and Q factor when the sensors are pumped above their lasing thresholds. While other hollow resonators, such as microcapillaries and microbubbles, have been used for refractive index sensing with even lower detection limits [42,43], our platform does not require the use of a fiber taper for probing the WGM resonances. Instead our approach relies on the gain medium inside the resonator for free space excitation and collection of the WGMs, making the setup simpler to use and implement.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lasing of whispering gallery modes in optofluidic microcapillaries

et al. 2016

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This paper demonstrates lasing of the whispering gallery modes in polymer coated optofluidic capillaries and their application to refractive index sensing. The laser gain medium used here is fluorescent Nile Red dye, which is embedded inside the high refractive index polymer coating. We investigate the refractometric sensing properties of these devices for different coating thicknesses, revealing that the high Q factors required to achieve low lasing thresholds can only be realized for relatively thick polymer coatings (in this case ≥ 800 nm). Lasing capillaries therefore tend to have a lower refractive index sensitivity, compared to non-lasing capillaries which can have a thinner polymer coating, due to the stronger WGM confinement within the polymer layer. However we find that the large improvement in signal-to-noise ratio realized for lasing capillaries more than compensates for the decreased sensitivity and results in an order-of-magnitude improvement in the detection limit for refractive index sensing.

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“…Whispering gallery resonators typically have small mode volumes V and high Q-factors which allow for high energy densities and long photon storage lifetimes [6]. One specific class of whispering gallery resonators that has gained considerable interest in recent years are microbubble resonators [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. Microbubble (or microshell) resonators are thin-walled spherical shells that can support whispering gallery modes with evanescent fields inside and outside of the resonator [10].…”

Section: Ocis Codes: (1403945) Microcavities; (1904360) Nonlinear Omentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Microbubble (or microshell) resonators are thin-walled spherical shells that can support whispering gallery modes with evanescent fields inside and outside of the resonator [10]. They typically have wall thicknesses ranging from ~0.4 -8 µm [12,18], and Q-factors up to 10 7 [7,19,20]. When the walls have a thickness of the order of the wavelength of light the evanescent fields can extend far outside the cavity wall resulting in a highly sensitive resonator ideal for various sensing applications [6].…”

Section: Ocis Codes: (1403945) Microcavities; (1904360) Nonlinear Omentioning

confidence: 99%