Analysis of the experimental Q factors (∼1 million) of photonic crystal nanocavities

In this letter, we show that the Q factors of the latest high-Q cavities in two dimensional photonic crystals, measured experimentally to be similar to 1000000, are determined by losses due to imperfections in the fabricated structures, and not by the cavity design. Quantitative analysis shows that the dominant sources of loss include the tilt of air-holes within the cavity, the roughness of the inner walls of the air-holes, variation in the radii of the air-holes, and optical absorption by adsorbed material. We believe that cavities with experimental Q factors of the order of several millions will be obtained in the future by reducing the losses due to imperfections through improved fabrication techniques. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America.