Ultra-high Q planar silicon microdisk resonators for chip-scale silicon photonics

We report the fabrication and experimental characterization of an ultra-high Q microdisk resonator in a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) platform. We examine the role of the substrate in the performance of such microdisk resonators. While substrate leakage loss has warranted the necessity of substrate undercut structures in the past, we show here that the substrate has a very useful role to play for both passive chip-scale device integration as well as active electronic device integration. Two device architectures for the disk-on-substrate are studied in order to assess the possibility of such an integration of high Q resonators and active components. Using an optimized process for fabrication of such a resonator device, we experimentally demonstrate a Q similar to 3x10(6), corresponding to a propagation loss similar to 0.16 dB/cm. This, to our knowledge, is the maximum Q observed for silicon microdisk cavities of this size for disk-on-substrate structures. Critical coupling for a resonance mode with an unloaded Q similar to 0.7x10(6) is observed. We also report a detailed comparison of the obtained experimental resonance spectrum with the theoretical and simulation analysis. The issue of waveguide-cavity coupling is investigated in detail and the conditions necessary for the existence or lack of critical coupling is elaborated. (c) 2007 Optical Society of America