Ultra-High-Q Microcavity Operation in H2O and D2O.

Download or read book Ultra-High-Q Microcavity Operation in H2O and D2O. written by and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 4 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Optical microcavities provide a possible method for boosting the detection sensitivity of biomolecules. Silica-based microcavities are important because they are readily functionalized, which enables unlabeled detection. While silica resonators have been characterized in air, nearly all molecular detections are performed in solution. Therefore, it is important to determine their performance limits in an aqueous environment. In this letter, planar microtoroid resonators are used to measure the relationship between quality factor and toroid diameter at wavelengths ranging from visible to near-IR in both H2O and D2O, and results are then compared to predictions of a numerical model. Quality factors (Q) in excess of 10(exp 8), a factor of 100 higher than previous measurements in an aqueous environment, are observed in both H2O and D2O.