Thermal nonlinear effects in hybrid optical microresonators

The inherent material properties of silica reduce the susceptibility of silica optical microcavities to many nonlinear phenomena, enabling the development of devices with improved stability. However, large nonlinear coefficients can be leveraged to create microcavities with additional functionality. Therefore, devices with controllable nonlinear behavior are of interest. In the present research, silica microcavities are coated with polystyrene or polymethylmethacrylate to form hybrid microresonators. Using these devices, the thermally induced nonlinear optical behavior is investigated. By precisely controlling the optical field overlap with the polymer film, an environmentally stable device, in which the resonant frequency is independent of the input power, is demonstrated. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3520467]