University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Surface-enhanced on-chip whispering gallery mode resonators for improved nonlinear optics

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Surface-enhanced on-chip whispering gallery mode resonators for improved nonlinear optics

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Abstract (if available)

Abstract The optical resonator has been an indispensable tool in pure science, engineering, and technology development. Optical resonators allow light, over a range of wavelengths, to be confined into small volumes. This property enables the confined light to interact with matter for increased timescales. As a result, foundational experiments in cavity quantum electrodynamics, nonlinear optics, and sensing have all been performed at chip-scale with ever-decreasing dimensionality. Of particular interest in these areas is the class of optical resonators known as whispering-gallery mode resonators. These resonators typically involve a geometry with a circular periphery, such as microspheres, microrings, microdisks, and microtoroids. This property allows for circular propagation via total internal reflection leading to modes being tightly confined within the resonator itself, decaying evanescently near the cavity/air boundary. Silica microtoroidal resonators are advantageous due to their small mode volumes (1000 μm³), ultra-high quality factors (~10⁸), and monolithic integration onto a chip. This combination of mode confinement and quality factor will invariably lead to high circulating intensities (~GW/cm²) with modest input powers (mW). This affords one to observe any number of nonlinear optical phenomena including stimulated Stokes Raman scattering, stimulated anti-Stokes Raman scattering, and four-wave mixing to name a few. Such processes are readily observable on this platform despite the low intrinsic nonlinear optical properties of silica (third-order nonlinear susceptibility and Raman gain). Further enhancement to the overall nonlinear properties can be made by adjusting the material properties of the cavity itself or interfacing with additional materials via layer deposition. In this thesis, both approaches are explored, and the observed nonlinear optical phenomena are studied in detail. ❧ First, an alternative to the standard silica microtoroid is explored using silicon oxynitride. Microtoroid optical resonators are fabricated from silicon oxynitride wafers grown via plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition and the stability of the quality factor over a period of a few weeks is studied. Due to the additional nitrogen content, the cavity surface presents fewer hydroxyl groups on the surface, owing to its enhanced resistance against ambient moisture. Thermo-optic coefficients of silicon oxynitride devices at differing compositions are also characterized. Kerr frequency comb generation and stability are also studied. Second, the surface of silica microtoroids are chemically modified with self-assembled organic monolayers to enhance the overall nonlinearity and functionality. These molecules are used to enhance anti-Stokes and cascaded Stokes Raman output and create an all-optically tunable microresonator. The functionalized materials are characterized for their properties and the appropriate light-matter interactions are studied and modeled using finite element methods.

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University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

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Asset Metadata

Creator Kovach, Andre (author)

Core Title Surface-enhanced on-chip whispering gallery mode resonators for improved nonlinear optics

School Viterbi School of Engineering

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Chemical Engineering

Publication Date 04/15/2021

Defense Date 02/24/2021

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag azobenzenes,frequency combs,integrated photonics,lasers,nanomaterials,OAI-PMH Harvest,optics,photoswitching,Raman microlasers,self-assembled monolayers,silicon oxynitride,solitons,surface chemistry,ultra-high Q microresonators,whispering-gallery modes

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Armani, Andrea Martin (committee chair), Branicio, Paulo (committee member), Ravichandran, Jayakanth (committee member), Wu, Wei (committee member)

Creator Email akovach@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-445082

Unique identifier UC11667563

Identifier etd-KovachAndr-9473.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-445082 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-KovachAndr-9473.pdf

Dmrecord 445082

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Kovach, Andre

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA