Laser-tuned whispering gallery modes in silica micro-bubble resonator integrated with iron oxide particles

A 473-nm-laser-tuned whispering gallery mode (WGM) silica microbubble resonator integrated with iron oxide particles is demonstrated in this paper. Owing to the photo-induced thermal effect, the WGM resonance wavelength could be tuned by adjusting laser power density of the illuminating light absorbed by the iron oxide particles. A wavelength tuning sensitivity of 0.03 nm/(mW center dot mm(-2)) and a tuning range of 0.18 nm are experimentally achieved. Moreover, the influence of ambient temperature on the WGM spectral characteristics is experimentally studied, and a silica-microbubble-based reference scheme is demonstrated to compensate for the temperature-caused resonance wavelength variation. The proposed laser-tuned microresonator has great potential in optical modulation and high-precision optical filtering applications.