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Updated: Aug 17, 2026

Fabrication of Silica Ultra High Quality Factor Microresonators
Published on: July 2, 2012
High quality factors and room-temperature lasing in a modified single-defect photonic crystal cavity
Marko Loncar1, Michael Hochberg, Axel Scherer
1Department of Electrical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, MS 136-93, Pasadena, California 91125, USA. loncar@deas.harvard.edu
Abstract:
We propose and analyze a new photonic crystal cavity design that supports a dipole mode with a quality factor greater than 20,000. Such a high quality factor is obtained by precise tuning of the cavity length with minimal disruption of the surrounding photonic crystal. A fabrication procedure based on dry etching of InGaAsP material in HI/H2/Ar is used to demonstrate photonic crystal lasers with smooth and straight sidewalls. These room-temperature lasers concentrate optical energy in air and are suitable for use as tunable lasers and chemical sensors.
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