Slow light in mass-produced, dispersion-engineered photonic crystal ring resonators

We present experimental results of photonic crystal ring resonators (PhCRRs) fabricated on the CMOS-compatible, silicon-on-insulator platform via 193-nm deep-UV lithography. Our dispersion-engineering design approach is compared to experimental results, showing very good agreement between theory and measurements. Specifically, we report a mean photonic band-edge wavelength of 1546.2 ± 5.8 nm, a 0.2% variation from our targeted band-edge wavelength of 1550 nm. Methods for the direct calculation of the experimental, discrete dispersion relation and extraction of intrinsic quality factors for a highly-dispersive resonator are discussed. A maximum intrinsic quality factor of ≈83,800 is reported, substantiating our design method and indicating that high-throughput optical lithography is a viable candidate for PhCRR fabrication. Finally, through comparison of the mean intrinsic quality and slowdown factors of the PhCRRs and standard ring resonators, we present evidence of an increase in light-matter interaction strength with simultaneous preservation of microcavity lifetimes.