Aerostatic tuning of whispering gallery modes (WGMs) in a microbubble resonator is demonstrated. The optical modes are redshifted over hundreds of gigahertz (GHz) simply by increasing the air pressure (up to 6 bars) inside the microbubble. A description of the pressure tuning properties of the WGMs in microbubbles is given in terms of the corresponding elasto-optical equations of spherical shells and the results are compared to experimental data. Microbubbles as small as 74 μm are tested and the experimental results show excellent agreement with the theory. An estimation method is developed for calculating the wall thicknesses of the microbubbles from the diameters, which are measured via direct microscopy. A geometrical factor χ is defined and a linear relationship between the shift rate (GHz/bar) of the bubbles modes and χ is observed.

To fully integrate quantum optical technology, active quantum systems must be combined with resonant microstructures and optical interconnects harvesting and routing photons in three diemsnsions (3D) on one chip. We fabricate such combined structures for the first time by using two-photon laser lithography and a photoresist containing nanodiamonds including nitrogen vacancy-centers. As an example for possible functionality, single-photon generation, collection, and transport is successfully accomplished. The single photons are efficiently collected via resonators and routed in 3D through waveguides, all on one optical chip. Our one-step fabrication scheme is easy to implement, scalable and flexible. Thus, other complex assemblies of 3D quantum optical structures are feasible as well.

In this paper we report on the assembly of a robust sensor system consisting of a polystyrene microsphere resonator attached to an optical fiber taper. Since the sphere is only supported by the micrometer-sized fiber no further alignment is necessary. This results in a thermally and mechanically well isolated optical resonator system with quality factors as high as 6×105. The narrow resonances of whispering gallery modes supported by the polystyrene resonators shift with temperature at a rate of 3.8 GHz/K. Thus, a sensitive thermometer is established which allows to detect the surrounding gas via its characteristic thermal conductivity.

The coupling of a quantum emitter to the modes of a silica toroid is presented. A fiber taper is used to manipulate and transfer a preselected diamond nanocrystal onto the toroid. Optical coupling of few nitrogen vacancy (NV) color centers contained inside the nanocrystal to the resonator modes is demonstrated by detecting the fluorescence via a tapered optical fiber coupler. A clear antibunching in the photon correlation measurement is observed indicating emission from only six NV centers residing inside the nanocrystal. The latter is confirmed by a photoluminescence spectrum at liquid helium temperature resolving individual zero phonon lines.

We design an on-chip single mode photon to surface-plasmon coupler. Our coupler consists of a tapered dielectric waveguide and a V-shaped plasmonic part. In contrast to other concepts designated to minimized-loss coupling into long-ranging waveguides, we focus on an easy-to-fabricate structure working in the visible spectral range. The air-cladded design provides full experimental access to the evanescent fields emerging from the plasmonic stripe guide. An adaptive finite element method for full three dimensional simulations is used combined with the Taguchi method for optimization, which makes our procedure extremely time-efficient and executable on standard personal computers.