BPN498: Integrated Silica Optomechanical Oscillators

Optical microring/disk resonators are the central component in many micro-optical applications, including optomechanical devices. Optomechanical devices that use light to stimulate mechanical resonance have applications in displacement sensing, optical mixing, and reference oscillators. High optical Q is necessary for these applications, so we are exploring the use of silica, which has low optical loss. So far, using a wafer-scale reflow process, we have achieved an optical Q of 15 million and have observed self-excited optomechanical oscillations. We have also fabricated nitride optomechanical rings, which have lower optical Q but better phase noise performance for self-excited optomechanical oscillations.

Project end date: 02/03/14