Mechanical oscillations in lasing microspheres

We investigate the feasibility of activating coherent mechanical oscillations in lasing microspheres by modulating the laser emission at a mechanical eigenfrequency. To this aim, 1.5% Nd3+:Barium-Titanium-Silicate microspheres with diameters around 50 {\mu}m were used as high quality factor (Q>10^6) whispering gallery mode lasing cavities. We have implemented a pump-and-probe technique in which the pump laser used to excite the Nd3+ ions is focused on a single microsphere with a microscope objective and a probe laser excites a specific optical mode with the evanescent field of a tapered fibre. The studied microspheres show monomode and multi-mode lasing action, which can be modulated in the best case up to 10 MHz. We have optically transduced thermally-activated mechanical eigenmodes appearing in the 50-70 MHz range, the frequency of which decreases with increasing the size of the microspheres. In a pump-and-probe configuration we observed modulation of the probe signal up to the maximum pump modulation frequency of our experimental setup, i.e., 20 MHz. This modulation decreases with frequency and is unrelated to lasing emission, pump scattering or thermal effects. We associate this effect to free-carrier-dispersion induced by multiphoton pump light absorption. On the other hand, we conclude that, in our current experimental conditions, it was not possible to resonantly excite the mechanical modes. Finally, we discuss on how to overcome these limitations by increasing the modulation frequency of the lasing emission and decreasing the frequency of the mechanical eigenmodes displaying a strong degree of optomechanical coupling.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figure

Far-field characterization of the thermal dynamics in lasing microspheres

This work reports the dynamical thermal behavior of lasing microspheres placed on a dielectric substrate while they are homogeneously heated-up by the top-pump laser used to excite the active medium. The lasing modes are collected in the far-field and their temporal spectral traces show characteristic lifetimes of about 2 ms. The latter values scale with the microsphere radius and are independent of the pump power in the studied range. Finite-Element Method simulations reproduce the experimental results, revealing that the thermal dynamics is dominated by the heat dissipated towards the substrate through the medium surrounding the contact point. The characteristic system scale regarding thermal transport is of few hundreds of nanometers, thus enabling an effective toy model for investigating heat conduction in non-continuum gaseous media and near-field radiative energy transfer.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figure

Far-field characterization of the thermal dynamics in lasing microspheres

This work reports the dynamical thermal behavior of lasing microspheres placed on a dielectric substrate while they are homogeneously heated-up by the top-pump laser used to excite the active medium. The lasing modes are collected in the far-field and their temporal spectral traces show characteristic lifetimes of about 2 ms. The latter values scale with the microsphere radius and are independent of the pump power in the studied range. Finite-Element Method simulations reproduce the experimental results, revealing that thermal dynamics is dominated by heat dissipated towards the substrate through the medium surrounding the contact point. The characteristic system scale regarding thermal transport is of few hundreds of nanometers, thus enabling an effective toy model for investigating heat conduction in non-continuum gaseous media and near-field radiative energy transfer

Mechanical oscillations in lasing microspheres

We investigate the feasibility of activating coherent mechanical oscillations in lasing microspheres by modulating the laser emission at a mechanical eigenfrequency. To this aim, 1.5%Nd3+:Barium-Titanium-Silicate microspheres with diameters around 50 μm were used as high quality factor (Q>106) whispering gallery mode lasing cavities. We have implemented a pump-and-probe technique in which the pump laser used to excite the Nd3+ ions is focused on a single microsphere with a microscope objective and a probe laser excites a specific optical mode with the evanescent field of a tapered fibre. The studied microspheres show monomode and multi-mode lasing action, which can be modulated in the best case up to 10 MHz. We have optically transduced thermally-activated mechanical eigenmodes appearing in the 50-70 MHz range, the frequency of which decreases with increasing the size of the microspheres. In a pump-and-probe configuration we observed modulation of the probe signal up to the maximum pump modulation frequency of our experimental setup, i.e., 20 MHz. This modulation decreases with frequency and is unrelated to lasing emission, pump scattering or thermal effects. We associate this effect to free-carrier-dispersion induced by multiphoton pump light absorption. On the other hand, we conclude that, in our current experimental conditions, it was not possible to resonantly excite the mechanical modes. Finally, we discuss on how to overcome these limitations by increasing the modulation frequency of the lasing emission and decreasing the frequency of the mechanical eigenmodes displaying a strong degree of optomechanical coupling

Ferromagnetic resonance assisted optomechanical magnetometer

The resonant enhancement of mechanical and optical interaction in optomechanical cavities enables their use as extremely sensitive displacement and force detectors. In this work we demonstrate a hybrid magnetometer that exploits the coupling between the resonant excitation of spin waves in a ferromagnetic insulator and the resonant excitation of the breathing mechanical modes of a glass microsphere deposited on top. The interaction is mediated by magnetostriction in the ferromagnetic material and the consequent mechanical driving of the microsphere. The magnetometer response thus relies on the spectral overlap between the ferromagnetic resonance and the mechanical modes of the sphere, leading to a peak sensitivity better than 900 pT Hz$^{-1/2}$ at 206 MHz when the overlap is maximized. By externally tuning the ferromagnetic resonance frequency with a static magnetic field we demonstrate sensitivity values at resonance around a few nT Hz$^{-1/2}$ up to the GHz range. Our results show that our hybrid system can be used to build high-speed sensor of oscillating magnetic fields

Self-sustained coherent phonon generation in optomechanical cavities

Optical forces can set tiny objects in states of mechanical self-sustained oscillation, spontaneously generating periodic signals by extracting power from steady sources. Miniaturized self-sustained coherent phonon sources are interesting for applications such as mass-force sensing, intra-chip metrology and intra-chip time-keeping among others. In this paper, we review several mechanisms and techniques that can drive a mechanical mode into the lasing regime by exploiting the radiation pressure force in optomechanical cavities, namely stimulated emission, dynamical back-action, forward stimulated Brillouin scattering and self-pulsing

Optical and mechanical mode tuning in an optomechanical crystal with light-induced thermal effects

[EN] We report on the modification of the optical and mechanical properties of a silicon 1D optomechanical crystal cavity due to thermo-optic effects in a high phonon/photon population regime. The cavity heats up due to light absorption in a way that shifts the optical modes towards longer wavelengths and the mechanical modes to lower frequencies. By combining the experimental optical results with finite-difference time-domain simulations, we establish a direct relation between the observed wavelength drift and the actual effective temperature increase of the cavity. By assuming that the Young's modulus decreases accordingly to the temperature increase, we find a good agreement between the mechanical mode drift predicted using a finite element method and the experimental one.This work was supported by the EU through the project TAILPHOX (ICT-FP7-233883) and the ERC Advanced Grant SOULMAN (ERC-FP7-321122) and the Spanish projects TAPHOR (MAT2012-31392). The authors thank A. Tredicucci for a critical reading of the manuscript and A. Pitanti for fruitful discussions.Navarro-Urrios, D.; Gomis-Bresco, J.; Capuj, NE.; Alzina, F.; Griol Barres, A.; Puerto Garcia, D.; Martínez Abietar, AJ.... (2014). Optical and mechanical mode tuning in an optomechanical crystal with light-induced thermal effects. Journal of Applied Physics. 116(9):93506-93510. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4894623S93506935101169Kippenberg, T. J., & Vahala, K. J. (2008). Cavity Optomechanics: Back-Action at the Mesoscale. Science, 321(5893), 1172-1176. doi:10.1126/science.1156032Chan, J., Alegre, T. P. M., Safavi-Naeini, A. H., Hill, J. T., Krause, A., Gröblacher, S., … Painter, O. (2011). Laser cooling of a nanomechanical oscillator into its quantum ground state. Nature, 478(7367), 89-92. doi:10.1038/nature10461Teufel, J. D., Donner, T., Li, D., Harlow, J. W., Allman, M. S., Cicak, K., … Simmonds, R. W. (2011). Sideband cooling of micromechanical motion to the quantum ground state. 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Characterization of radiation pressure and thermal effects in a nanoscale optomechanical cavity. Optics Express, 17(18), 15726. doi:10.1364/oe.17.015726Eichenfield, M., Chan, J., Camacho, R. M., Vahala, K. J., & Painter, O. (2009). Optomechanical crystals. Nature, 462(7269), 78-82. doi:10.1038/nature08524Oskooi, A. F., Roundy, D., Ibanescu, M., Bermel, P., Joannopoulos, J. D., & Johnson, S. G. (2010). Meep: A flexible free-software package for electromagnetic simulations by the FDTD method. Computer Physics Communications, 181(3), 687-702. doi:10.1016/j.cpc.2009.11.008Ding, L., Belacel, C., Ducci, S., Leo, G., & Favero, I. (2010). Ultralow loss single-mode silica tapers manufactured by a microheater. Applied Optics, 49(13), 2441. doi:10.1364/ao.49.002441J. Chan , Ph.D. dissertation, California Institute of Technology, Los Angeles, 2014.Priem, G., Dumon, P., Bogaerts, W., Van Thourhout, D., Morthier, G., & Baets, R. (2005). 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Chemical etching effects in porous silicon layers

We have studied the properties of p+-type doped porous silicon, formed by electrochemical etching, when is left in presence of the electrolyte for different post-etching times. Using an interferometric technique, we monitored the formation of the porous silicon layer during the electrochemical treatment as well as the change of its porosity during the post-etch process due to a chemical dissolution mechanism. These data are complemented with a study of the photoluminescence modification for different post-etching times

Fabrication and optimization of rugate filters based on porous silicon

We report an experimental study of porous silicon-based rugate filters. Possible optimisations that can improve different features of the filters are investigated. We demonstrate sidelobe attenuation by means of half-apodization of the structures with a sinusoidal window. Reduction of interference ripples are experimentally observed through the insertion of index-matching layers on the boundaries of the structure. The superposition of two different designs to obtain a multi-stop-band filter is also demonstrated. We show the possibility of controlling the bandwidth of the stop-bands by varying the index contrast. All the results are discussed and compared with numerical calculations