Letter abstract


Nature Materials 4, 207 - 210 (2005)
doi:10.1038/nmat1320

Subject Category: Optical, photonic and optoelectronic materials

Ultra-high-Q photonic double-heterostructure nanocavity

Bong-Shik Song1, Susumu Noda1, Takashi Asano1 and Yoshihiro Akahane1,2

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High-quality factor (Q) photonic nanocavities that strongly confine photons in volumes of optical-wavelength dimension are attracting much attention in various fields, including photonics1, 2, 3, 4, 5, telecommunications6, 7, quantum information8 and cavity quantum electrodynamics9, 10, because a strong light–matter interaction is obtained. An important design rule has been proposed11 in an attempt to realize high-Q nanocavities in two-dimensional photonic-crystal slabs. The form of the cavity electric-field distribution should slowly vary, most ideally as described by a gaussian function, in order to suppress out-of-slab photon leakage. However, the exact cavity structure that minimizes photon leakage has not yet been established. Here, we demonstrate the importance of the formation of a photonic double-heterostructure, which has resulted in the realization of nanocavities with extremely high-Q factors of 600,000, more than one order of magnitude higher than any previous reports11, 12, 13, 14. We have also shown theoretically that Q-factors greater than 20,000,000 may be obtained when optimizing the structure.

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  1. Department of Electronic Science and Engineering, Kyoto University, Katsura, Nishikyo-ku, Kyoto 615-8510, Japan
  2. Semiconductor Technologies R&D Laboratories, Sumitomo Electric Industries, Itami, Hyogo 664-0016, Japan

Correspondence to: Susumu Noda1 e-mail: snoda@kuee.kyoto-u.ac.jp

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