Soft lithographic fabrication of high Q polymer microcavity arrays

As new synthetic, low-loss polymers are developed, polymer optical cavities are experiencing a revolution, in both fabrication design and functionality. Recently, a fabrication technique was developed that enabled planar arrays of polymeric resonators to achieve cavity Q factors greater than 1 million. In the present letter, this molding technique is expanded to fabricate resonators from polymers that have either thermal or UV curing mechanisms. The quality factors and broad band spectrum of these devices are determined at 680, 1300, and 1550 nm. These resonant cavities demonstrate quality factors which are competitive with photonic crystals and microdisk resonators.