Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

Photonics

The Vs and Qs of optical microcavities

Nature volume 390, page 125 (1997)Cite this article

Periodic structures can be used to manipulate light. Such structures are called photonic bandgap materials, or photonic crystals1, and promise to be as important to the progress of optical devices as semiconductors were to the development of electronic devices. Physicists didn't have a good ‘box’ for optical radiation (light with wavelengths in or near the visible region) before, because metals are not perfect reflectors at optical wavelengths. But photonic crystals can achieve very strong confinement of optical light. On page 143of this issue2, Foresi et al. of MIT report the most spatially localized photon mode ever, which was achieved using the photonic bandgap approach. The volume of their ‘box’ is 0.055 μ;m3, which is only five cubic half-wavelengths (1.54-μ;m infrared light being shortened to 0.44 μ;m by the material's refractive index of 3.5). When the box is this small, the radiation properties of the material inside it are fundamentally altered3.

The work adds to the limited experimental evidence that photonic crystals do what they are supposed to do. The properties of these materials are thought to arise from multiple reflections at the periodically distributed interfaces, which add up to prevent light from propagating over a wide band of wavelengths. Although the transmission properties of photonic crystals have been measured before4, the mechanism had not been demonstrated so conclusively.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Three traps for photons: a, the smallest optical microcavity yet built, formed by a larger gap in a periodic series of holes in.

References

  1. Joannopoulos, J. D., Villeneuve, P. R. & Fan, S. Nature 386, 143–149 (1997).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Foresi, J. S. et al. Nature 390, 143–145 (1997).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Purcell, E. M. Phys. Rev. 69, 681–681 (1946).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Krauss, T. F., De La Rue, R. M. & Brand, S. Nature 383, 699–702 (1996).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Labilloy, D. et al. Electron. Lett. 33, 1978–1979 (1997).

    Google Scholar 

  6. Labilloy, D. et al. (in the press).

  7. Villeneuve, P. R. et al. in Photonic Band Gap Materials (ed. Soukoulis, C. M.) 411-426 (NATO ASI Series, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1996).

  8. Krauss, T. F., Vögele, B., Stanley, C. R. & De La Rue, R. M. IEEE Photonics Technol. Lett. 9, 176–178 (1997).

    Google Scholar 

  9. Gerard, J.-M. et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 69, 449–451 (1996).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Author notes

  1. Thomas F. Krauss: Thomas F. Krauss is in the Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK, currently on leave at California Institute of Technology, Mail stop 136-93, Pasadena, California 91125, USA. e-mail: tfk@cco.caltech.edu

Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Department of Engineering Science, Oxford University, Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PJ, UK

    Pauline Rigby

Authors
  1. Pauline Rigby
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Thomas F. Krauss
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Rigby, P., Krauss, T. The Vs and Qs of optical microcavities. Nature 390, 125 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/36464

Download citation

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/36464

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing