Crystal quartz optical whispering-gallery resonators

A quality factor exceeding 5x10(9) is obtained in whispering-gallery mode (WGM) resonators fabricated of crystalline quartz. We observe significant electrical tunability of WGMs in x-cut resonators and demonstrate an electro-optic modulator with a submegahertz passband at 12 GHz. We discuss other photonics applications of the crystal quartz WGM resonators in narrowband agile tunable filters, compact narrow linewidth lasers, and microwave and millimeter wave oscillators.     

Coherent backscattering in lithium niobate whispering-gallery-mode resonators

Splitting of high-Q whispering gallery modes into a doublet of counterpropagating modes was observed in a resonator fabricated from LiNbO(3). An energy-transfer rate of 10 MHz was calculated by measuring the frequency detuning of the doublet structure. The splitting rate is also used to calculate the maximum variation in the internal index of refraction over one wavelength, which is of the order of 10(-7). This shows that the mechanical process used to fabricate whispering-gallery-mode resonators from LiNbO(3) is sufficient to achieve material-limited quality factors.     

Optical-RF frequency stability transformer

An optical technique based on stability transfer among modes of a monolithic optical microresonator is proposed for long term frequency stabilization of a radio frequency (RF) oscillator. We show that locking the frequency difference of two microresonator modes with dissimilar sensitivity to an applied forcing function to a master RF oscillator improves the long term stability of a slave RF oscillator locked to the frequency difference of another pair of modes with nearly identical sensitivity to the same forcing function. For instance, the stability of a 10 MHz master oscillator with Allan deviation of 10(-7) at 10(3) s can be improved and transferred to a slave oscillator with identical free running stability performance, so that the resultant Allan deviation of the slave oscillator becomes equal to 10(-13) at 10(3) s. The suggested method does not require absolute frequency references.     

Surface acoustic wave opto-mechanical oscillator and frequency comb generator

We report on realization of an efficient triply resonant coupling between two long lived optical modes and a high frequency surface acoustic wave (SAW) mode of the same monolithic crystalline whispering gallery mode resonator. The coupling results in an opto-mechanical oscillation and generation of a monochromatic SAW. A strong nonlinear interaction of this mechanical mode with other equidistant SAW modes leads to mechanical hyperparametric oscillation and generation of a SAW pulse train and associated frequency comb in the resonator. We visualized the comb by observing the modulation of the light escaping the resonator.     

Ring-down spectroscopy for studying properties of CW Raman lasers

We describe theoretically a simple technique for analyzing the conversion efficiency and the oscillation threshold of all-resonant intracavity Raman lasers. The method is based on a dependence of the ring-down time of the pump cavity mode on the energy accumulated in the cavity.     

Development of a laser cleaning method for the first mirror surface of the charge exchange recombination spectroscopy diagnostics on ITER

Physics of Atomic Nuclei - A set of optical diagnostics is expected for measuring the plasma characteristics in ITER. Optical elements located inside discharge chambers are exposed to an intense...     

Field structure in a photorefractive holographic grating in a planar waveguide

A theoretical investigation is made of the field structure in a holographic grating formed by TE₀ modes in a planar photorefractive waveguide by the photogalvanic recording mechanism. Waveguides with three characteristic refractive index profiles are considered, namely, a step function, a parabola, and a hyperbolic secant squared. A comparison is made between the light field distributions of TE₀ modes in waveguides having the different profiles. The field structure of the space charge in planar holographic gratings is analyzed for their initial formation phase. It is shown that the space charge field has a similar structure for all three waveguide types considered when planar photorefractive gratings are recorded by TE₀ modes.Institute of Automated Control Systems and Radio Electronics, Tomsk. Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Fizika, No. 11, pp. 85–92, November, 1993.     

Neutron Spectroscopy of the Atomic Dynamics of La<Subscript>2</Subscript>Zr<Subscript>2</Subscript>O<Subscript>7</Subscript> at Fluorite–Pyrochlore Structural Transformations

The formation of the structural and dynamic properties of La₂Zr₂O₇ in the process of crystallization at the isothermal annealing of initially amorphous precursors obtained by the coprecipitation of corresponding salts has been studied by neutron spectroscopy. The existence of vibrational states characteristic of hydrogen, which is in one or another of the possible chemical states and is incorporated into a solid matrix, has been detected in the spectra of amorphous and fluorite phases. The DFT calculation of the phonon density of states has been performed to analyze the energy structure of experimental phonon spectra for various phases of the La₂Zr₂O₇ compound. The amount of hydrogen in the fluorite phase has been estimated.     

White-light whispering gallery mode resonators

We propose theoretically and demonstrate experimentally white-light whispering gallery mode resonators. These resonators have essentially a continuous modal spectrum accompanied by ultrahigh-Q frequency-independent quality factors. Applications of the resonators for ringdown spectroscopy and light modulation are discussed.