By using spatially resolved spectroscopy the authors demonstrate that the periodical focusing of light in straight chains of touching 5μm polystyrene microspheres is characterized with the periodicity of photonic nanojets corresponding to the size of two spheres. In transmission spectra of long (>20 spheres) chains they observe Fabry–Pérot fringes with propagation losses of only 0.08dB per sphere in the maxima of transmission peaks. Due to mechanical robustness, tight focusing of the beam, high optical throughput, and broad spectral transmission properties such chains can be used in a variety of biomedical applications as optical microprobes with subwavelength spatial resolution.

We report what we believe is the first experimental confirmation at visible light wavelengths of the backscattering enhancement phenomenon of the photonic nanojet. A specially designed sample stage consisting of a multilayered sandwich of glass, solid polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), and liquid PDMS, permitted the precise positioning of a gold nanoparticle of diameter between 50 and 100 nm within the nanojet emitted by a 4.4 μm diameter BaTiO3 microsphere embedded within the PDMS. We determined that, when the gold nanoparticle is optimally positioned within the nanojet, the backscattering of the microsphere can greatly increase: for example, by 3:1 (200%) for the 50nm gold nanoparticle. The increased backscattering is strongly dependent upon the illumination wavelength and the numerical aperture of the imaging system, and occurs for nonresonant illuminations of the isolated microsphere. Low objective numerical apertures of approximately 0.075 yield the maximum observed increases in backscattering. The measured data agree well with numerical calculations incorporating Mie-based theory and Fourier optics.

In this letter, the authors observe high quality (Q up to 20 000) whispering gallery modes (WGMs) with small modal volumes V∼0.3μm3 in 4–5μm Al(Ga)As∕GaAs micropillars by employing an experimental geometry in which both excitation and collection of emission are in a direction normal to the sidewalls of the pillars. They show that WGMs provide at least two times larger values of the figure of merit for strong coupling applications Q∕V compared to “photonic dot” states in pillars with comparable size.