Tuning whispering gallery modes in optical microspheres with chemical etching

Abstract

We demonstrate a new method to tune the resonance of whispering gallery modes in a fused silica optical microsphere resonator by removing atomic layers from the sphere surface with low concentrations of hydrofluoric acid. Our results show that the WGMs can be tuned over 660 pm (430 GHz), more than one free spectral range of the microsphere resonator, with a tuning precision better than 0.2 pm (130 MHz). Both atomic force microscope images and a Q-factor measurement performed in air suggest that no additional degradation in Q-factor due to surface roughness is introduced during this etching process.