Diffractive grating coupled whispering gallery mode resonators

• US 7,929,589 B1
• Filed: 06/13/2008
• Issued: 04/19/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/13/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oewaves Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Oewaves Incorporated
• Inventors: Maleki, Lutfollah, Ilchenko, Vladimir, Savchenkov, Anatoliy
• Primary Examiner(s): Harvey; Minsun
• Assistant Examiner(s): King; Joshua
• Application Number:
  US12/157,916
• Time in Patent Office: 1,040 Days
• Field of Search: 372/67, 372/66, 372/102, 385/39
• US Class Current: 372/67
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 6/29323 Coupling to or out of the diffractive element through the lateral surface of the light guide evanescent grating couplers G02B6/29332
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 6/29341 Loop resonators operating in a whispering gallery mode evanescently coupled to a light guide, e.g. sphere or disk or cylinder evanescent coupling for sensing fluorescence G01N21/648
• CPC Class Codes: H01S 5/1032 Coupling to elements comprising an optical axis that is not aligned with the optical axis of the active region

Abstract

Optical resonators and optical devices based on optical resonators that implement diffractive couplers for coupling light with the optical resonators.

Claims

1. An optical device, comprising:

an optical resonator structured to support a whispering gallery mode circulating in a plane of the optical resonator; and

a diffractive grating coupler located adjacent to and optically coupled to the optical resonator, the diffractive grating coupler comprising;

a fiber comprising a fiber core and a fiber cladding surrounding the fiber core, wherein the fiber core comprises a fiber grating section configured to diffract guided light in the fiber core into the fiber cladding toward the an end facet of the fiber, and wherein the fiber is located to place the end facet adjacent to a surface of the optical resonator to provide optical coupling with the optical resonator; and

a phase-type diffractive grating formed on the end facet to evanescently couple light between the fiber and the optical resonator, wherein the diffractive grating is structured to suppress diffracted light in a zero diffraction order and diffract light of the input optical beam into light in at least one of two first diffraction orders that matches in phase with the whispering gallery mode inside the optical resonator.

2. The device as in claim 1, wherein:

the fiber is oriented to be perpendicular to the surface of the optical resonator to diffract input light into the two first diffraction orders that match in phase with two light waves in the whispering gallery mode inside the optical resonator that propagate in opposite directions to form a standing wave inside the optical resonator.

3. The device as in claim 1, wherein:

the fiber is oriented to form an angle with respect to a normal direction of the surface of the optical resonator to diffract input light into only one first diffraction order that matches in phase with the whispering gallery mode inside the optical resonator to generate a uni-directional traveling wave inside the optical resonator.

4. The device as in claim 1, wherein:

the optical resonator is a spheroidal resonator.

5. The device as in claim 1, comprising:

a laser located to direct a laser beam as input light into the fiber of the diffractive grating coupler which couples the input light into the optical resonator via the phase-type diffractive grating formed on the end facet of the fiber and couples light out of the optical resonator as feedback light to the laser, wherein the laser receives the feedback light and is locked to an optical frequency of the received feedback light.

6. The device as in claim 5, wherein:

the laser responds to an input RF signal to modulate the laser beam to carry the input RF signal,

the device includes an output optical coupler located close to the optical resonator at a location different from the diffractive grating coupler and operable to evanescently couple light out of the optical resonator to produce an output optical beam; and

an optical detector that receives the output optical beam from the output optical coupler to convert the received output optical beam into an RF signal indicative of the input RF signal.

7. The device as in claim 1, wherein:

the phase-type diffractive grating formed on the end facet is structured to have a dimension similar to a cross section of the fiber core.

8. The device as in claim 1, wherein:

the phase-type diffractive grating formed on the end facet is structured to have a dimension greater than a cross section of the fiber core.