Document Type

Article

Rights

This item is available under a Creative Commons License for non-commercial use only

Disciplines

Electrical and electronic engineering, Communication engineering and systems

Publication Details

IEEE Photonics Journal, Vol.4, 3, 2012, pp.1013-1020.

DOI:10.1109/JPHOT.2012.2202385

Abstract

The fabrication and characterization of a bismuth-silicate glass microsphere resonator has been demonstrated. At wavelengths near 1550 nm, high-modes can be efficiently excited in a 179-μm diameter bismuth-silicate glass microsphere via evanescent coupling using a tapered silica fiber with a waist diameter of circa 2 μm. Resonances with Q-factors as high as were observed. The dependence of the spectral response on variations in the input power level was studied in detail to gain an insight into power-dependent thermal resonance shifts. Because of their high nonlinearity and high- factors, bismuth-silicate glass microspheres offer the potential for robustly assembled fully integrated all-optical switching devices.