Precision measurement of ultralow losses of an asymmetric optical microcavity.

The losses of the transmission, absorption, and scattering of optical mirrors govern the extraction efficiency of a nonclassical state that is generated inside a cavity. By measuring the reflectivities and transmittances and the matching factors from both sides of a super-mirror-made microcavity at various mode-matching efficiencies, the transmission losses and the unwanted losses, including the absorption and scatter losses, of the left and right cavity mirrors were both determined at the parts-per-million level.