Ultra High Q Optical Microcavities

Confinement and manipulation of photons using microcavities have triggered intense research interest in both basic and applied physics for more than a decade. Prominent examples are whispering gallery microcavities which confine photons by means of continuous total internal reflection along a curved and smooth surface. The long photon lifetime, strong field confinement, and in-plane emission characteristics make them promising candidates for enhancing light-matter interactions on a chip. In this book, we will introduce different ultra-high-Q whispering gallery microcavities, and focus on their applications in enhancing light-matter interaction, such as ultralow-threshold microlasing, highly sensitive optical biosensing, nonlinear optics, cavity quantum electrodynamics and cavity optomechanics.

Optical microcavities are structures that enable confinement of light to microscale volumes. The universal importance of these structures has made them indispensable to a wide range of fields. This important book describes the many applications and the related physics, providing both a review and a tutorial of key subjects by leading researchers from each field. The topics include cavity QED and quantum information, nanophotonics and nanostructure interactions, wavelength switching and modulation in optical communications, optical chaos and biosensors.

The dielectric microstructures act as ultrahigh Q factors optical cavities, which modify the spontaneous emission rates and alter the spatial distributions of the input and output radiation. The editors have selected leading scientists who have made seminal contributions in different aspects of optical processes in microcavities. Every attempt has been made to unify the underlying physics pertaining to microcavities of various shapes. This book begins with a chapter on the role of microcavity modes with additional chapters on how these microcavity modes affect the spontaneous and stimulated emission rates, enhance nonlinear optical processes, used in cavity-QED and chemical physics experiments, aid in single-molecule detection, influence the design of microdisk semiconductor lasers, and how deformed cavities can be treated with classical chaos theory.

Optical microcavities provide a possible method for boosting the detection sensitivity of biomolecules. Silica-based microcavities are important because they are readily functionalized, which enables unlabeled detection. While silica resonators have been characterized in air, nearly all molecular detections are performed in solution. Therefore, it is important to determine their performance limits in an aqueous environment. In this letter, planar microtoroid resonators are used to measure the relationship between quality factor and toroid diameter at wavelengths ranging from visible to near-IR in both H2O and D2O, and results are then compared to predictions of a numerical model. Quality factors (Q) in excess of 10(exp 8), a factor of 100 higher than previous measurements in an aqueous environment, are observed in both H2O and D2O.

Optical microcavities are structures that enable confinement of lightto microscale volumes. The universal importance of these structureshas made them indispensable to a wide range of fields. This importantbook describes the many applications and the related physics, providing both a review and a tutorial of key subjects by leadingresearchers from each field

Nanophotonics has emerged rapidly into technological mainstream with the advent and maturity of nanotechnology available in photonics and enabled many new exciting applications in the area of biomedical science and engineering that were unimagined even a few years ago with conventional photonic engineering techniques. Handbook of Nanophotonics in Biomedical Engineering is intended to be a reliable resource to a wealth of information on nanophotonics that can inspire readers by detailing emerging and established possibilities of nanophotonics in biomedical science and engineering applications. This comprehensive reference presents not only the basics of nanophotonics but also explores recent experimental and clinical methods used in biomedical and bioengineering research. Each peer-reviewed chapter of this book discusses fundamental aspects and materials/fabrication issues of nanophotonics, as well as applications in interfaces, cell, tissue, animal studies, and clinical engineering. The organization provides quick access to current issues and trends of nanophotonic applications in biomedical engineering. All students and professionals in applied sciences, materials, biomedical engineering, and medical and healthcare industry will find this essential reference book highly useful.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Optical SuperComputing, OSC 2010, held in Bertinoro, Italy, in November 2010. The 13 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in this book. Being an annual forum for research presentations on all facets of optical computing for solving hard computation tasks, OCS addresses the following topics of interest: designs or demonstrations of optical computing devices, algorithmics and complexity issues of optical computing, computation representation by photons and holograms, neural and brain inspired architectures, electro-optic devices for interacting with optical computing devices, practical implementations, analysis of existing devices and case studies, optical photonics and laser switching technologies, optical and photonic memories, optical signal processing subsystems, optical networks for high-performance computing, optical interconnections, quantum optical systems, applications and algorithms for optical devices, Alpha particles, X-rays, and nano-technologies for optical computing.

Confinement and manipulation of photons using microcavities have triggered intense research interest in both basic and applied physics for more than a decade. Prominent examples are whispering gallery microcavities which confine photons by means of continuous total internal reflection along a curved and smooth surface. The long photon lifetime, strong field confinement, and in-plane emission characteristics make them promising candidates for enhancing light-matter interactions on a chip. In this book, we will introduce different ultra-high-Q whispering gallery microcavities, and focus on their applications in enhancing light-matter interaction, such as ultralow-threshold microlasing, highly sensitive optical biosensing, nonlinear optics, cavity quantum electrodynamics and cavity optomechanics.

This book details how to design and fabricate microresonators. It covers the latest in microresonator research and discusses them in photonic crystals, microsphere circuits and sensors. It includes application-oriented examples.