Micro-fabricated mirrors with finesse exceeding one million

Journal Article · Mon Aug 22 00:00:00 EDT 2022 · Optica

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1364/OPTICA.467440· OSTI ID:1882713

Jin, Naijun ; McLemore, Charles A.; Mason, David; Hendrie, James P. ; Luo, Yizhi; Kelleher, Megan L.; Kharel, Prashanta ; Quinlan, Franklyn; Diddams, Scott A. ; Rakich, Peter T.

The Fabry–Perot resonator is one of the most widely used optical devices, enabling scientific and technological breakthroughs in diverse fields including cavity quantum electrodynamics, optical clocks, precision length metrology, and spectroscopy. Though resonator designs vary widely, all high-end applications benefit from mirrors with the lowest loss and highest finesse possible. Fabrication of the highest-finesse mirrors relies on centuries-old mechanical polishing techniques, which offer losses at the parts-per-million (ppm) level. However, no existing fabrication techniques are able to produce high-finesse resonators with the large range of mirror geometries needed for scalable quantum devices and next-generation compact atomic clocks. In this paper, we introduce a scalable approach to fabricate mirrors with ultrahigh finesse ( $\ge \; <\#comment/>{10}^6$ ) and user-defined radius of curvature spanning of four orders of magnitude ( ${10}^{-\; <\#comment/>4}-\; <\#comment/>{10}^0\mathrm{m}$ ). We employ photoresist reflow and reactive ion etching to shape and transfer mirror templates onto a substrate while maintaining sub-Angstrom roughness. This substrate is coated with a dielectric stack and used to create arrays of compact Fabry–Perot resonators with finesse values as high as 1.3 million and measured excess loss $<\; <\#comment/>1\mathrm{p}\mathrm{p}\mathrm{m}$ . Optical ringdown measurements of 43 devices across five substrates reveal that the fabricated cavity mirrors—with both small and large radii of curvature—produce an average coating-limited finesse of 1.05 million. This versatile approach opens the door to scalable fabrication of high-finesse miniaturized Fabry–Perot cavities needed for emerging quantum optics and frequency metrology technologies.

• Research Organization: Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC); National Institute of Standards and Technology; Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0019406; FA9453-19-C0029
• OSTI ID: 1882713
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 1980989
• Journal Information: Optica, Journal Name: Optica Vol. 9 Journal Issue: 9; ISSN 2334-2536
• Publisher: Optical Society of America
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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