Fabry-Perot cavities made with photonic crystal (PC) mirrors and other resonant structures exhibit nontraditional characteristics due to the strong wavelength dependence of their reflected phase. This Letter describes how engineering the phase of PC mirrors enables sensors that are tolerant to variations in laser center frequency and line width. Reflection spectra measurements of Fabry-Perot cavities made with PC mirrors were collected as a function of wavelength and cavity length, providing experimental verification of theory and simulations.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Resonant mirrors introduce large spectral gradients in reflected phase while maintaining high reflectivity, allowing synthesis of optimized reflected phase for many practical applications. In this paper we show theoretically that asymmetry is required for negative group delay in lossless mirrors and explore the limits of reflected phase in resonant mirrors through the use of coupled mode theory and rigorous couple wave analysis. Our coupled mode theory shows that the phase response of resonant mirrors is determined by interacting resonances and gives insight into tradeoffs in design of mirrors with desired phase response.