Millisecond Photon Lifetime in a Slow-Light Microcavity

Vincent Huet (1) , Alphonse Lovamamy Rasoloniaina (1) , Pierre Guillemé (1) , Philippe Rochard (1) , Patrice Féron (1) , Michel Mortier (2) , Juan Ariel Levenson (3) , Kamel Bencheikh (3) , Alejandro M. Yacomotti (3) , Yannick Dumeige (1)

1 FOTON - Fonctions Optiques pour les Technologies de l'informatiON
2 IRCP - Institut de Recherche de Chimie Paris
3 LPN - Laboratoire de photonique et de nanostructures

Optical microcavities with ultralong photon storage times are of central importance for integrated nanophotonics. To date, record quality (Q) factors up to 10^11 have been measured in millimetric-size single-crystal whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) resonators, and 10^10 in silica or glass microresonators. We show that, by introducing slow-light effects in an active WGM microresonator, it is possible to enhance the photon lifetime by several orders of magnitude, thus circumventing both fabrication imperfections and residual absorption. The slow-light effect is obtained from coherent population oscillations in an erbium-doped fluoride glass microsphere, producing strong dispersion of the WGM (group index ng∼106). As a result, a photon lifetime up to 2.5 ms at room temperature has been measured, corresponding to a Q factor of 3×10^12 at 1530 nm. This system could yield a new type of optical memory microarray with ultralong storage times.

Domaines: Optique [physics.optics]

Vincent Huet, Alphonse Lovamamy Rasoloniaina, Pierre Guillemé, Philippe Rochard, Patrice Féron, et al.. Millisecond Photon Lifetime in a Slow-Light Microcavity. Physical Review Letters, 2016, 116 (133902), ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.133902⟩. ⟨hal-01308037⟩