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Updated: Aug 10, 2026
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Development of Whispering Gallery Mode Polymeric Micro-optical Electric Field Sensors
Published on: January 29, 2013
Discontinuous spectral element method modeling of optical coupling by whispering gallery modes between microcylinders
1Department of Mathematics, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, Tennessee 37614, USA. deng@etsu.edu
Summary
We developed a new numerical method to study how light couples between microcylinders using evanescent whispering gallery modes. This method successfully demonstrated coupling and analyzed its dependence on microcylinder separation and size.
Area of Science:
- Optics and Photonics
- Computational Electromagnetics
- Nanophotonics
Background:
- Evanescent whispering gallery modes (WGMs) are crucial for optical coupling in microresonators.
- Understanding this coupling is key for developing advanced optical waveguide devices.
- Existing methods may have limitations in accurately simulating complex geometries and high-order phenomena.
Purpose of the Study:
- To introduce a novel high-order time-domain discontinuous spectral element method (TD-DSEM) for simulating optical coupling.
- To systematically investigate the evanescent WGM coupling between two microcylinders.
- To analyze the influence of microcylinder separation and size variation on optical coupling efficiency.
Main Methods:
- Implementation of a high-order TD-DSEM.
- Utilizing Dubiner orthogonal polynomial basis on triangular elements.
- Employing Legendre nodal orthogonal basis on quadrilateral elements.
- Simulating evanescent WGM coupling between two microcylinders.
Main Results:
- Demonstrated successful optical coupling between two microcylinders via evanescent WGMs.
- Quantified the dependence of coupling strength on the separation distance between microcylinders.
- Showcased the impact of microcylinder size variations on the coupling behavior.
- Validated the accuracy and efficiency of the TD-DSEM for this application.
Conclusions:
- The TD-DSEM is an effective tool for studying evanescent WGM coupling in microresonator systems.
- Microcylinder separation and size are critical parameters that significantly influence optical coupling.
- This work provides valuable insights for the design and optimization of coupled resonator optical waveguide devices.
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