Based on the Vernier effect of the cascaded double ring resonator (CDRR) sensor, a sensor consisting of a microfluidic control system, a sensing ring, and a reference ring with a micro-heater for thermal tuning is proposed in this paper. In wavelength interrogation, a broadband spectrometer or a large tunable range laser is not required. The shift of the output spectrum caused by the refractive index change of the sample is converted into the change of the electric power by the thermal tuning heater. Due to the Vernier effect, the sensitivity of the sensor is 20 times higher than that of the single ring. The spectral envelope of the thermal-optic tuning of the sensor was fitted by a Gaussian function in the wavelength range of 8 nm. The experimental results showed that the sensitivity was 33.703 W/RIU, and the limit of detection was 1.34×10-5RIU.

High-Q lithium niobate (LN) optical micro-resonators are an excellent platform for future applications in optical communications, nonlinear optics, and quantum optics. To date, high-Q factors are typically achieved in LN using either dielectric masks or femtosecond laser ablation, while the more standard and commonly available lift-off metallic masks are often believed to lead to rough sidewalls and lowered Q factors. Here, we show that LN microring resonators with strong light confinement and intrinsic Q factors over 1 million can be fabricated using optimized lift-off metallic masks and dry etching processes, corresponding to a waveguide propagation loss of ～0.3dB/cm. The entire process is fully compatible with wafer-scale production and could be transferred to other photonic materials.

We present a perfect graphene absorber with a compound waveguide grating at the near-infrared. The analytical approach is mainly based on the coupled leaky mode theory, which turns the design of the absorber to finding out the required leaky modes supported by the grating structure. Perfect absorption occurs only when the radiative loss of the leaky mode matches the intrinsic absorption loss, which is also named the critical coupling condition. Furthermore, we also demonstrate that the critical coupling of the system can be robustly controlled, and the perfect absorption wavelength can be easily tuned by adjusting the parameters of the compound waveguide grating.

Parity–time (PT) symmetry has been demonstrated in the frame of classic optics. Its applications in laser science have resulted in unconventional control and manipulation of resonant modes. PT-symmetric periodic circular Bragg lasers were previously proposed. Analyses with a transfer-matrix method have shown their superior properties of reduced threshold and enhanced modal discrimination between the radial modes. However, the properties of the azimuthal modes were not analyzed, which restricts further development of circular Bragg lasers. Here, we adopt the coupled-mode theory to design and analyze chirped circular Bragg lasers with radial PT symmetry. The new structures possess more versatile modal control with further enhanced modal discrimination between the azimuthal modes. We also analyze azimuthally modulated circular Bragg lasers with radial PT symmetry, which are shown to achieve even higher modal discrimination.

We demonstrate a proposal for making an ultrastable laser referenced to a multi-cavity, enabling a lower thermal noise limit due to the averaging effect. In comparison with a single-cavity system, relative frequency instability of the synthesized laser can be improved by a factor of the square root of the cavity number. We perform an experiment to simulate a two-cavity system with two independent ultrastable lasers. Experimental results show that the relative frequency instability (Allan deviation) of the synthesized laser is 5 × 10 ¹⁶, improved by a factor of √2 from a single-cavity-stabilized laser.

Coherent pulse stacking (CPS) is a new time-domain coherent addition technique that stacks several optical pulses into a single output pulse, enabling high pulse energy and high average power. A Z-domain model targeting the pulsed laser is assembled to describe the optical interference process. An algorithm, extracting the cavity phase and pulse phases from limited data, where only the pulse intensity is available, is developed to diagnose optical cavity resonators. We also implement the algorithm on the cascaded system of multiple optical cavities, achieving phase errors less than 1.0° (root mean square), which could ensure the stability of CPS.