Topographic control of open-access microcavities at the nanometer scale

Open-access optical microcavities are emerging as an original tool for light-matter studies thanks to their intrinsic tunability and the direct access to the maximum of the electric field along with their small mode volume. In this article, we present recent developments in the fabrication of such devices demonstrating topographic control of the micromirrors at the nanometer scale as well as a high degree of reproducibility. Our method takes into account the template shape as well as the effect of the dielectric mirror growth. In addition, we present the optical characterization of these microcavities with effective radii of curvature down to 4.3 mu m and mode volume of 16 x ( lambda/2)(3). This work opens the possibility to fully engineer the photonic potential depending on the required properties. (C) 2015 Optical Society of America