Micromachined Fabry-Perot resonator combining submillimeter cavity length and high quality factor

We demonstrate experimentally optical quality factor of nearly 9000 in a micromachined Fabry-Perot resonator based on free space propagation of light and direct coupling to optical fibers. This result is obtained on long cavity resonators (L>250 mu m), a usually difficult case in terms of power loss, but very useful configuration for experiments requiring either long optical path or enough space for manipulation. The resonator architecture includes two multilayered silicon-air Bragg mirrors of cylindrical shape, combined with a fiber rod lens. The specific stability criteria are derived for the proposed resonator architecture. Dimensions of the fabricated devices are chosen accordingly. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3595277]