We report self-pulsation in an erbium-doped silica toroidal microcavity laser coupled to a tapered fiber and investigate the effects of pump power and taper-cavity coupling condition on the dynamic behaviors of the pulse train. The microcavity is pumped at 1444.8 nm, and lasing occurs at 1560.2 nm with a threshold of 12 microW. Experimental results are interpreted within the framework of ion-pa...

In conventional surface-emitting lasers, the photon density of states is essentially that of a bulk material and, therefore, spontaneous emission rates are the same as in bulk. However, in an ideal laser, one would like to have a single photon mode coincident with the peak in the material gain so that zero-threshold lasing occurs. This possibility is examined for a surface-emitting microcavity ...

A thermally and mechanically stabilized fiber interferometer suited for examining ultra-high quality factor microcavities is fashioned. After assessing its free spectral range (FSR), the module is put in parallel with a fiber taper-microcavity system and then calibrated through isolating and eliminating random shifts in the laser frequency (i.e. laser jitter noise). To realize the taper-microca...

A Yb-doped silica microcavity laser on a silicon chip is fabricated from a solgel thin film. The high-Q micro-toroid cavity, which has a finesse of 10,000, is evanescently coupled to an optical fiber taper. We report a threshold of 1.8 microW absorbed power that is, to the best of our knowledge, the lowest published threshold to date for any Yb-doped laser. The effect of Yb(3+) concentration on...

Microcavity laser design and performance optimization requires a quantitative knowledge of the cavity optical losses. A generalized method using sub-threshold spectral measurements matched to model calculations is demonstrated to determine optical loss in microcavity lasers. Cold-cavity spectral characteristics are used to extract the size-dependent optical loss for small diameter oxide-confine...

We report a novel geometry for OPOs based on nonlinear microcavity resonators. This approach relies on a self-locked scheme that enables OPO emission without the need for thermal locking of the pump laser to the microcavity resonance. By exploiting a CMOS-compatible microring resonator, we achieve oscillation featured by a complete absence of "shutting down", i.e. the self-terminating behavior ...

In this paper, a femtosecond laser fabricated fiber inline micro Mach-Zehnder interferometer with deposited palladium film for hydrogen sensing is presented. Simulation results show that the transmission spectrum of the interferometer is critically dependent on the microcavity length and the refractive index of Pd film and a short microcavity length corresponds to a high sensitivity. The experi...

Ultrafast coherent generation of acoustic phonons is studied in a semiconductor optical microcavity. The confinement of the light pulse amplifies both the generation and the detection of phonons. In addition, the standing wave character of the photon field modifies the generation and detection phonon bandwidth. Coherent generation experiments in an acoustic nanocavity embedded in an optical mic...

This paper demonstrates the lasing and transport properties of a green conjugated polymer, namely POFP. High photoluminescence yields and excellent electron transport of POFP film make it promising for gain media. Low threshold value of 4.0 μJ/cm2 for amplified spontaneous emissions under a pulsed Nd:YAG laser at 355 nm was obtained, as well as a high Q-factor of 159. An inverted waveguide micr...