Chemically etched ultrahigh-Q wedge-resonator on a silicon chip

• Published in: Nature photonics Vol. 6; no. 6; pp. 369 - 373
• Main Authors: Lee, Hansuek, Chen, Tong, Li, Jiang, Yang, Ki Youl, Jeon, Seokmin, Painter, Oskar, Vahala, Kerry J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.06.2012; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 639/624/1075/401; Applied and Technical Physics; Benchmarking; Chips; Devices; Fabrication; Lasers; letter; Nonlinear optics; Optical resonators; Optics; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Quantum Physics; Resonators; Semiconductors
• ISSN: 1749-4885; 1749-4893
• DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2012.109

Ultrahigh- Q optical resonators are being studied across a wide range of fields, including quantum information, nonlinear optics, cavity optomechanics and telecommunications 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 . Here, we demonstrate a new resonator with a record Q -factor of 875 million for on-chip devices. The fabrication of our device avoids the requirement for a specialized processing step, which in microtoroid resonators 8 has made it difficult to control their size and achieve millimetre- and centimetre-scale diameters. Attaining these sizes is important in applications such as microcombs and potentially also in rotation sensing. As an application of size control, stimulated Brillouin lasers incorporating our device are demonstrated. The resonators not only set a new benchmark for the Q -factor on a chip, but also provide, for the first time, full compatibility of this important device class with conventional semiconductor processing. This feature will greatly expand the range of possible ‘system on a chip’ functions enabled by ultrahigh- Q devices. Using only conventional semiconductor processing on a silicon wafer, researchers successfully fabricate an on-chip resonator with a record Q -factor of 875 million — around 20 times higher than previous results. They also demonstrate stimulated Brillouin lasers as an example application to emphasize the size control feature of the fabrication method and the ultrahigh- Q available from these resonators.