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Development of Whispering Gallery Mode Polymeric Micro-optical Electric Field Sensors
Published on: January 29, 2013
Flexible compact microdisk lasers on a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrate
1Research Center for Applied Sciences (RCAS), Academia Sinica, Taiwan, ROC. mhshih@gate.sinica.edu.tw
Optics Express
|January 23, 2009
Summary
Flexible microdisk cavities fabricated on polydimethylsiloxane substrates exhibit low-threshold lasing. Bending the cavity demonstrated curvature dependence in output power and threshold, showcasing tunable optical properties.
Area of Science:
- Optics and Photonics
- Materials Science
Background:
- Microdisk cavities are essential for photonics applications.
- Flexible substrates offer new possibilities for tunable optical devices.
Purpose of the Study:
- To fabricate and characterize flexible microdisk cavities.
- To investigate the lasing properties and whispering-gallery modes of these flexible cavities.
- To demonstrate the effect of mechanical bending on cavity performance.
Main Methods:
- Fabrication of compact microdisk cavities on a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrate.
- Experimental characterization of lasing performance, including threshold power.
- Three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain (3D-FDTD) simulations for mode analysis.
- Mechanical bending of the microdisk cavity to study curvature dependence.
Main Results:
- Successful fabrication of flexible microdisk cavities.
- Achieved lasing with a low threshold power.
- Characterized whispering-gallery modes using 3D-FDTD simulations.
- Demonstrated significant dependence of output power and threshold on cavity curvature due to bending.
Conclusions:
- Flexible microdisk cavities can be fabricated on PDMS substrates.
- These cavities exhibit efficient lasing with low threshold power.
- Mechanical strain provides a method for tuning the optical properties of microdisk resonators.
