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HL: Halbleiterphysik
HL 49: Photonische Kristalle II
HL 49.6: Talk
Tuesday, March 8, 2005, 12:00–12:15, TU P164
Characterizing and Controlling Photonic Crystal Cavities with Scanning Probe Techniques — •Femius Koenderink, Ben Buchler, and Vahid Sandoghdar — Nano-Optics Group, Laboratory of Physical Chemistry, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Solid state optical resonators that confine light in ultrasmall volumes currently enjoy wide interest, partly rooted in cavity quantum electrodynamics and partly motivated by a range of applications, including control of spontaneous emission, realization of low threshold lasers, optical switching and sensors. A particular advantage of photonic crystal microcavities is that one can achieve subwavelength cavity dimensions while keeping moderately high quality factors of up to 105. In our work we use Scanning Near-field Optical Microscopy to image directly the spatial extent of light. In addition to imaging, we discuss how a near-field probe can be used to manipulate the resonances of a photonic crystal microcavity. By performing Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) as well as perturbative analytic calculations, we demonstrate that it is possible to shift the resonance of a microcavity over a large range while maintaining a high quality factor. We discuss prospects of this technique for opto-mechanical switching and tuning of photonic crystals.