Optical Cavity Design Research Articles

Prototype optical enhancement cavity for steady-state microbunching.

The innovative mechanism of steady-state microbunching (SSMB) promises a potent light source, featuring high repetition rate and coherent radiation. The laser modulator, comprising an undulator and an optical enhancement cavity, is pivotal in SSMB. A high-finesse prototype optical enhancement cavity for SSMB with an average power of 55 kW is described in this paper. Preliminary design of the laser modulator, experimental setup, and methods to address frequency degeneracy and power coupling issues are discussed. D-shaped mirrors are utilized to successfully suppress the modal instability. This study is the first to illustrate the finesse reduction caused by high-order mode damping during experiments. The experimental and simulation results match closely. A cavity power coupling model is established, and the experimental results verify the correctness of the coupling model. A method for estimating the absorption coefficient through thermal-induced evolution of cavity mode has been implemented. Experimental results demonstrate a high-average-power enhancement cavity with a finesse of 16 518 ± 103 and an estimated average absorption coefficient of 12 ppm for the cavity mirrors. The findings contribute to the advancement of SSMB by providing insights into the design and operation of high-power optical enhancement cavities.

Low noise near-concentric optical cavity design.

Near-concentric cavities are excellent tools for enhancing an atom-light interaction as they combine a small mode volume with a large optical access for atom manipulation. However, they are sensitive to longitudinal and transverse misalignments. To address this sensitivity, we present a compact near-concentric optical cavity system with a residual cavity length variation δLC,rms = 0.36(2) Å. A key part of this system is a cage-like tensegrity mirror support structure that allows us to correct for longitudinal and transverse misalignments. The system is stable enough to allow the use of mirrors with a higher cavity finesse to enhance the atom-light coupling strength in cavity-QED applications.

Optical Cavity Design and Functionality for Molecular Strong Coupling.

Optical cavity/molecule strong coupling offers attractive opportunities to modulate photochemical or photophysical processes. When atoms or molecules are placed in an optical cavity, they can coherently exchange photonic energy with optical cavity vacuum fields, entering the strong coupling interaction regime. Recent work suggests that the thermodynamic and kinetic properties of molecules can be significantly changed by strong coupling, resulting in the emergence of intriguing photochemical and photophysical phenomena. As more and more physico-chemical systems are studied under strong coupling conditions, optical cavities have also advanced in their sophistication, responsiveness, and (multi)functionality. In this review, we highlight some of these recent developments, particularly focusing on Fabry-Perot microcavities.

Membrane-in-the-middle optomechanics with a soft-clamped membrane at milliKelvin temperatures

Soft-clamped silicon nitride membrane resonators are capable of coherence times τ exceeding 100 ms at millikelvin bath temperatures. However, harnessing strong optomechanical coupling in dry dilution refrigerators remains a challenge due to vibration issues and heating by optical absorption. Here, we address these issues with an actuator-free optical cavity and mechanical resonator design, with the cavity mounted on a simple vibration-isolation platform. We observe dynamical backaction when the cavity is driven with a free-space optical beam stabilized close to the red sideband using a two-beam locking scheme. Finally, we characterize the effect of absorption heating on coherence time, finding it scales with the intracavity power P as τ ∝ P−(0.34±0.04).

Control, Modulation, and Analytical Descriptions of Vibrational Strong Coupling

Here, we review the design of optical cavities, transient and modulated responses, and theoretical models relevant to vibrational strong coupling (VSC). While planar Fabry-Perot cavities remain the most common choice for experiments involving vibrational polaritons, other choices including plasmonic and phononic nanostructures, extended lattice resonances, and wavelength-scale three-dimensionally confined dielectric cavities have unique advantages, which are discussed. Next, we review the nonlinear response to laser excitation of VSC systems revealed by transient pump-probe and 2DIR techniques. The assignment of various features observed in these experiments has been an important topic with significant recent progress and controversy. The modulation of VSC systems by various means such as ultrafast pulses and electrochemical methods is also described. Finally, theoretical approaches to understanding the physics and chemistry of VSC systems are reviewed with an eye toward their applicability and usefulness. These fall into two main categories: (1) solving for the eigenmodes of the system and (2) evolutionary techniques including the transfer-matrix method and its generalizations. The need for quantum optical methods of describing VSC systems is critically evaluated in light of current experimental work, and we discuss circumstances which necessitate consideration of the full in-plane dispersion of the Fabry-Perot cavities.

Multicolor Bipolar Modulation of Titanium–Chromium Oxide Electrochromic Coatings

Electrochromic (EC) materials offer wide-ranging commercial applications, including smart windows, electrochromic mirrors, and programmable static displays. While many conventional electrochromic applications require the encapsulation of the EC materials and other components inside a sealed cell, there are cases where the color appearance of the object’s surface needs to be durable in atmospheric or aquatic environments. Among the current fabrication methods for EC materials, atomic layer deposition (ALD) remains less explored. In this work, we fill these gaps by employing ALD to grow a (Ti,Cr)Ox film as a new subset of EC coatings that operates in direct contact with aqueous solutions. The protective and bipolar coloration properties of the (Ti,Cr)Ox are achieved by the ALD alloying of TiO2 and CrOx nanocrystals. Intrinsic EC performance showed excellent cycle stability of more than 2000 cycles in aqueous electrolytes of high salinity and high corrosion resistance in pH = 0 acid. Furthermore, multicolor modulation has been achieved via a Fabry–Perot optical cavity design. Microstructural and spectroscopic characterizations combined with finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) modeling allow us to correlate the optical appearance with coating electronic and microstructures. This work showed that this ALD-grown ternary EC coating can also act as a surface protection layer and has unique advantages over other EC materials to achieve balanced performance among color tunability, coloration efficiency, and cycle stability.

Inverse design and realization of an optical cavity-based displacement transducer with arbitrary responses

Optical cavity has long been critical for a variety of applications ranging from precise measurement to spectral analysis. A number of theories and methods have been successful in describing the optical response of a stratified optical cavity, while the inverse problem, especially the inverse design of a displacement sensitive cavity, remains a significant challenge due to the cost of computation and comprehensive performance requirements. This paper reports a novel inverse design methodology combining the characteristic matrix method, mixed-discrete variables optimization algorithm, and Monte Carlo method-based tolerance analysis. The material characteristics are indexed to enable the mixed-discrete variables optimization, which yields considerable speed and efficiency improvements. This method allows arbitrary response adjustment with technical feasibility and gives a glimpse into the analytical characterization of the optical response. Two entirely different light-displacement responses, including an asymmetric sawtooth-like response and a highly symmetric response, are dug out and experimentally achieved, which fully confirms the validity of the method. The compact Fabry-Perot cavities have a good balance between performance and feasibility, making them promising candidates for displacement transducers. More importantly, the proposed inverse design paves the way for a universal design of optical cavities, or even nanophotonic devices.

250 fs, 130 mW Laser With Tunable Pulse Repetition Rate From 0.5 to 1.3 GHz

We report a compact ultrafast solid-state laser source with a pulse repetition rate continuously tunable in the range of 0.56–1.23 GHz. The optical cavity design allows a user to vary the repetition rate only by moving positions of two optical components inside the resonator, without a need to exchange components or realignment. The Yb:KYW crystal based cavity emits 250 femtosecond pulses at a central wavelength around 1040 nm, with a self-starting SESAM modelocking. In a robust modelocked operation mode, an average power up to 130 mW is achieved using a stabilized single mode pump diode at a wavelength of 981 nm, while the laser in continuous wave (CW) mode delivers up to 270 mW. Atmospheric air cooling was sufficient for both CW and modelocked laser operation. Quite low noise performance was observed, with carrier frequency SNR higher than 80 dB, although the measurements were taken with the open breadboard setup.

Bioinspired patterned photonic junctions for plasmon-enhanced metal photoluminescence and fluorescence: design of optical cavities for near-infrared electronics

Photonic junctions with their plasmonic components can outstandingly amplify the light-matter interactions, boost the localized surface plasmon resonance and tightly concentrate the optical electromagnetic fields. The mechanisms of plasmon-enhanced metal photoluminescence (PL) and especially fluorescence (FL) emission enhancement of plasmonic junctions (PJs) in optoelectronic devices are still undisclosed in many aspects. Herewith, various bioinspired designs of colonial PJs are investigated, where the geometrical features of Au nanoantennas are originated from diatoms patterns. Developed PJs are based on few nanometer thick heterostructured metal oxide spacer semiconductors sandwiched between Au antennas. PL and dynamic FL spectroscopy measurements are carried out to investigate and understand the underlying effects behind the tangible increase of absorption of IR-lights (70%), outstanding increase of PL emissions (43 times) and dynamic FL characteristics of optical cavities. Considerable high-level PL emission of dot-like PJs is attributed to the development of horizontal Fabry–Pérot cavities and the higher Purcell factors of fabricated photonic structures. The obtained data suggest that two-dimensional (2D) heterostructured metal oxide spacer constructively improves the photonic characteristics of PJs. Tailoring plasmonic dot-like PJs into functional photodetectors resulted in 27.4 A/W photoresponsivity, 44% external quantum efficiency (EQE) and ultra-fast microsecond photo-response at near-infrared (IR) light illumination (∼800 nm). Findings demonstrate the outstanding plasmonic structures’ capability for further development of novel IR optoelectronics.

Multiphoton Nanosculpting of Optical Resonant and Nonresonant Microsensors on Fiber Tips.

This work presents a multiphoton nanosculpting process that is employed to fabricate three-dimensional (3D) mechanically assisted optical resonant and nonresonant microsensors on fiber tips. The resonant microsensor consists of a complex 3D optical cavity design with submicron resolution and advanced micromechanical features including a hinged, multipositional mirror, a 3D spring body to displace this mirror without deforming it, and adhesive-retaining features for sealing the cavity. These features represent a breakthrough in the integration and fabrication capabilities of micro-optomechanical systems. The demonstrated dynamic optical surface enables directional thin-film deposition onto obscured areas. We leverage the rotation of the dynamically movable mirror to deposit a thin reflective coating onto the inner surfaces of a Fabry–Pérot cavity (FPC) with curved geometry. The reflective coating in conjunction with the dynamically rotatable mirror greatly improves the quality factor of the FPC and enables a new class of highly integrated multipurpose sensor systems. A unique spring body FPC on an optical fiber tip is used to demonstrate pressure sensing with a sensitivity of 38 ± 7 pm/kPa over a range of −80 to 345 kPa. The nonresonant microsensor consists of microblades that spin in response to an incident flow. Light exiting the core of the optical fiber is reflected back into the fiber core at a flow-dependent rate as the blades pass by. The fiber tip flow sensor operates successfully over a range of 9–25 LPM using nitrogen gas and achieves a linear response of 706 ± 43 reflections/LPM over a range of 10.9–12 LPM. The nanostructuring technology presented in this work offers a path forward for utilizing 3D design freedom in micromechanically enhanced optical and optofluidic systems to facilitate versatile processing and advantageous geometries beyond the current state-of-the-art.

Polarization impedance measurement cavity enhanced laser absorption spectroscopy.

We present a theoretical overview and experimental demonstration of a continuous-wave, cavity-enhanced optical absorption spectrometry method to detect molecular gas. This technique utilizes the two non-degenerate polarization modes of a birefringent cavity to obtain a zero background readout of the intra-cavity absorption. We use a double-pass equilateral triangle optical cavity design with additional feed-forward frequency noise correction to measure the R14e absorption line in the 30012←00001 band of CO2 at 1572.655 nm. We demonstrate a shot noise equivalent absorption of 3 × 10-13 cm-1 Hz-1/2.

Electrically injected whispering-gallery mode InGaN/GaN microdisks

The combination of high-quality factors and small mode volumes in whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) resonators promotes significantly enhanced light-matter interactions, making them excellent cavities for achieving compact semiconductor lasers with low threshold and narrow linewidth. However, success in developing GaN-based WGM lasers has been extremely limited due to the complicated design and fabrication of both high-finesse optical cavities and effective efficient injection schemes. Here, we report on WGM emission from vertical-injection blue-light emitting InGaN/GaN thin-film microdisks achieved by wafer bonding and laser liftoff removal of the sapphire substrate. The observed WGMs, identified as a combination of first order and higher order modes with the aid of finite-difference time-domain simulations, have Q-factors as high as 3700. This work presents a viable approach toward the practical implementation of compact InGaN/GaN microdisk lasers through a simple and scalable process.

Manipulation of blue TADF top-emission OLEDs by the first-order optical cavity design: toward a highly pure blue emission and balanced charge transport

The broad luminescence spectrum of a thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) organic light-emitting diode (OLED) is a critical issue to overcome for its application in high-color-purity displays. Herein, a novel device structure that utilizes the first-order microcavity optical mode with a high radiance intensity is demonstrated to solve this problem by considering the charge transport properties through the analysis of hole-only and electron-only devices. In addition, by tuning the optical interference near the semitransparent top cathode layers consisting of thin silver and organic capping layers, light extraction is increased by nearly 2 times compared to the device without a capping layer. Consequently, the optimized blue TADF top-emission OLED exhibits much lower full width at half-maximum, higher maximum current efficiency, and external quantum efficiency compared to the device before optimization. This approach is expected to provide a simple but effective way to further enhance the spectral purity of the conventional TADF-based OLEDs.

Design of optical cavity for air sanification through ultraviolet germicidal irradiation.

The transmission of airborne pathogens represents a major threat to worldwide public health. Ultraviolet light irradiation can contribute to the sanification of air to reduce the pathogen transmission. We have designed a compact filter for airborne pathogen inactivation by means of UVC LED sources, whose effective irradiance is enhanced thanks to high reflective surfaces. We used ray-tracing and computational fluid dynamic simulations to model the device and to maximize the performance inside the filter volume. Simulations also show the inhibition of SARS-Cov-2 in the case of high air fluxes. This study demonstrates that current available LED technology is effective for air sanification purposes.

Thermo-Fluid Design Simulation of Nd3+ POCl3 Transverse Flow Liquid Laser Cavity

Abstract Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) based thermal design of a transverse flow optical cavity is carried out for 1 kW Nd3+ POCl3 liquid laser source to investigate temperature and velocity distribution in the optical pumping region of the cavity. Temperature gradient and turbulence both affect the refractive index of the liquid gain medium, which results in optical path difference (OPD), divergence and hence, poorer quality of the laser beam. The main purpose of this design is to achieve uniform flow and least temperature gradient in the optical pumping region so that the optical path difference can be minimized and a good beam quality can be achieved. CFD model has been developed for carrying out thermo-fluid simulations for this thermal system and based on these simulations, an optimum geometry of inlet ports along with their position from optical pumping region have been proposed. A user defined function (UDF) is incorporated for the input of spatially varying heat source term in each cell of the optical pumping region of the cavity. Variations in refractive index and optical path difference are estimated from the temperature data using another UDF. Simulation reveals that mass flowrate between 1.5 kg/s and 2.0 kg/s maintains the optical homogeneity of gain medium. Preliminary experiments have been carried out to demonstrate the effect of flowrate on the beam divergence and thereby exhibiting the importance of present simulation work.

Long wavelength operation of a dysprosium fiber laser for polymer processing.

We demonstrate operation of a mid-infrared dysprosium-doped fiber laser with emission at 3388 nm, representing the longest wavelength yet achieved from this class of laser, to the best of our knowledge. Oscillation far removed from the Dy3+ gain peak around 3 µm is achieved through the design of a high feedback optical cavity employing a directly inscribed fiber Bragg grating as the output coupler. Laser performance is characterized by a slope efficiency with respect to injected pump power of 38% and maximum output power of 134 mW, an improvement of at least three orders of magnitude over prior attempts at long wavelength Dy3+ fiber laser operation. This wavelength coincides with a maximum in the absorption coefficient of PMMA, which we exploit for preliminary demonstration of the utility of this source in polymer processing.

Optical cavity design enables enhanced sensing of distinct versions of chiral molecules

Optical cavity design can potentially enhance circular dichroism (CD) signal by several orders of magnitude and improve the determination of handedness in chiral molecules.

Numerical study on the angular light trapping of the energy yield of organic solar cells with an optical cavity

A limiting factor in organic solar cells (OSCs) is the incomplete absorption in the thin absorber layer. One concept to enhance absorption is to apply an optical cavity design. In this study, the performance of an OSC with cavity is evaluated. By means of a comprehensive energy yield (EY) model, the improvement is demonstrated by applying realistic sky irradiance, covering a wide range of incidence angles. The relative enhancement in EY for different locations is found to be 11-14% compared to the reference device with an indium tin oxide front electrode. The study highlights the improved angular light absorption as well as the angular robustness of an OSC with cavity.

Optical design of connecting electrodes for tandem organic light-emitting diodes.

Connecting electrodes play a crucial role to assist charge injection into the adjacent electroluminescent units in tandem organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). In this study, we demonstrate that Mg:Ag alloy is an effective connecting electrode for bottom- and top-emitting tandem OLEDs. Optical cavity design and simulation are also conducted to predict the luminance of tandem OLEDs. It is found that the theoretical luminance of tandem OLEDs is close to but not higher than twofold enhancement over the luminance of a single OLED optimized to the first resonance mode, which is theoretically higher than high-order resonance modes. It is also found that the optical properties of Mg:Ag connecting electrodes, while having relatively small influence on weak microcavity bottom-emitting tandem OLEDs, have large influence on strong microcavity top-emitting tandem OLEDs.

Population inversion X-ray laser oscillator

Oscillators are at the heart of optical lasers, providing stable, transform-limited pulses. Until now, laser oscillators have been available only in the infrared to visible and near-ultraviolet (UV) spectral region. In this paper, we present a study of an oscillator operating in the 5- to 12-keV photon-energy range. We show that, using the [Formula: see text] line of transition metal compounds as the gain medium, an X-ray free-electron laser as a periodic pump, and a Bragg crystal optical cavity, it is possible to build X-ray oscillators producing intense, fully coherent, transform-limited pulses. As an example, we consider the case of a copper nitrate gain medium generating ∼ 5 × [Formula: see text] photons per pulse with 37-fs pulse length and 48-meV spectral resolution at 8-keV photon energy. Our theoretical study and simulation of this system show that, because of the very large gain per pass, the oscillator saturates and reaches full coherence in four to six optical-cavity transits. We discuss the feasibility and design of the X-ray optical cavity and other parts of the oscillator needed for its realization, opening the way to extend X-ray-based research beyond current capabilities.