Proton beam writing of three-dimensional microcavities

Optical micro cavities exhibit high quality factors due to the circulation of resonant optical fields within the cavity. Polymers are good materials for the fabrication of micro cavities for practical applications due to the availability of various refractive indices and their low cost. Polymer micro cavities generally yield low Q-factors compared to semiconductor materials because of inherent material absorption losses, and their Q-factors are limited by the low index contrast between the polymer and the substrate material. In the present work, three dimensional micro cavities were fabricated in SU-8 using proton beam writing to enhance the index contrast by isolating the cavities from the substrate. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.