On-Chip High-Finesse Fabry-Perot Microcavities for Optical Sensing and Quantum Information

Abstract

For applications in sensing and cavity-based quantum computing and metrology, open-access Fabry-Perot cavities—with an air or vacuum gap between a pair of high reflectance mirrors—offer important advantages compared to other types of microcavities. For example, they are inherently tunable using MEMS-based actuation strategies, and they enable atomic emitters or target analytes to be located at high field regions of the optical mode. Integration of curved-mirror Fabry-Perot cavities on chips containing electronic, optoelectronic, and optomechanical elements is a topic of emerging importance. Micro-fabrication techniques can be used to create mirrors with small radius-of-curvature, which is a prerequisite for cavities to support stable, small-volume modes. We review recent progress towards chip-based implementation of such cavities, and highlight their potential to address applications in sensing and cavity quantum electrodynamics.

Optofluidics Refractometers

“…Fabry–Pérot (FP) etalon is considered to be a promising choice for the volume sensing application due to its simple structure and growing performance [ 16 ]. Some recent research demonstrated that open-access optical cavities with high Q factor and low mode volume can be achieved by utilizing micro-scale curved-mirrors [ 55 ], or even a spherical mirror on a fiber tip-end and an assorted planar mirror [ 56 ].…”

“…Microfluidics has achieved great progress recently due to its own excellent performance in fluidic handling [ 7 , 8 , 9 ], micro-environment control [ 10 , 11 , 12 ] and signal amplification [ 13 , 14 ]. By integrating advanced micro- and nano-optical systems with well-developed microfluidics technology, optofluidics has ushered in a new era of lab-on-a-chip functionality [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ], including biochemical sensing with optical measurement [ 23 ], optofluidic imaging [ 24 ], and light-driven manipulation [ 25 , 26 ]. In the case of RI sensing, many valuable review papers such as Fan’s [ 27 ] have found that synergistic integration creates unique characteristics that promote the performance and function of biological/chemical analysis.…”

Cavity quantum electrodynamics with color centers in diamond

“…Such cavities take advantage of absorptionlimited dielectric mirror coatings to achieve very high reflectivity [218,219], and offer full spatial and spectral tunability by positioning the mirrors, but their cm-scale size leads to large mode volumes and limited scalability. By miniaturizing the parabolic mirrors, these drawbacks can be mitigated, with micron scale geometries achieving mode volumes on the order of λ 3 [220]. Moreover, the small size of the micromirrors enables parallelized fabrication processes [220][221][222] and direct integration with optical fibers [107,223].…”

“…By miniaturizing the parabolic mirrors, these drawbacks can be mitigated, with micron scale geometries achieving mode volumes on the order of λ 3 [220]. Moreover, the small size of the micromirrors enables parallelized fabrication processes [220][221][222] and direct integration with optical fibers [107,223].…”

Functionalizing a Tapered Microcavity as a Gas Cell for On-Chip Mid-Infrared Absorption Spectroscopy

“…Disordered photonic chips can achieve sub- resolution by exploring scattering patterns, but suffer from a limited wavelength range [ 11 ]. Despite the improved resolution, wavelength-selective devices using digital planar holography [ 12 , 13 ], photonic crystal slot waveguide [ 14 ], microring resonator combined with a diffraction grating [ 15 , 16 ], multimode spiral waveguide [ 17 ], cylindrical Fabry–Perot (FP) cavity [ 18 , 19 ] and double ring resonator [ 20 ] are suitable to be built laterally on a wafer, which complicates on-chip integration with the light source and the detector.…”