Dynamic fabrication method of SNAP microresonators

Area of Science:

• Photonics and Optical Engineering
• Nanotechnology
• Materials Science

Background:

• Surface nanoscale axial photonics (SNAP) technology enables subangstrom fabrication precision for optical microresonators and photonic circuits on optical fibers.
• Existing fabrication methods, such as CO2 laser annealing, are prone to errors from temperature fluctuations, parameter inconsistencies, and alignment issues, necessitating complex post-processing.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify and address the primary sources of fabrication errors in SNAP structures.
• To develop a novel dynamic fabrication method for achieving higher precision in SNAP structures.

Main Methods:

• Investigated fiber displacements during CO2 laser beam optical fiber annealing, a key SNAP fabrication technique.
• Developed and implemented a dynamic fabrication method utilizing translating beam exposure to mitigate misalignment effects.

Main Results:

• The dynamic fabrication method effectively suppressed misalignment errors, achieving an effective fiber radius variation of approximately 10 nm with a precision of ~0.1 Å.
• Identified laser power fluctuations as a potential remaining source of fabrication error.

Conclusions:

• The dynamic translating beam exposure method significantly enhances fabrication precision for SNAP structures.
• Further improvements in SNAP fabrication precision may be achieved by controlling laser power stability.