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Optical microcavity characterization via resonance spectra and modes

Jonah Post1, Chunjiang He1, Corné Koks1,3, Rudi van Velzen1, Andrea Corazza2, Yannik L. Fontana2, Marcel Erbe2, Richard J. Warburton2, and Martin P. van Exter1

  • 1Huygens-Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9504, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
  • 2Department of Physics, Basel University, Klingelbergstrasse 82, 4056 Basel, Switzerland
  • 3Department of Electrical and Photonics Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Ørsteds Plads 345A, DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark

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Phys. Rev. A 112, 033537 – Published 29 September, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/y63l-zwr5

Abstract

This paper describes how resonance spectra and mode profiles can be used to characterize and quantify the mode-shaping effects in open-access plano-concave optical microcavities. The presented semi-analytic theory is based on the application of perturbation theory to the round-trip evolution of the optical field. It includes various mirror-shape and nonparaxial effects and extends the nonparaxial theory presented in [Exter et al., Phys. Rev. A 106, 013501 (2022)] and verified in [Koks et al., Phys. Rev. A 105, 063502 (2022)] to the common case of an anisotropic Gaussian mirror. The presented measurements and analyses of resonance spectra and mode profiles demonstrate how the different mode-shaping effects can be individually distinguished and quantified. Spin-orbit coupling, which is one of the nonparaxial effects, is prominently visible in the intriguing polarization patterns of the resonant modes, while polarization tomography yields the shape-induced birefringence and associated polarization splitting of the fundamental modes.

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Phys. Rev. A 112, 033537– Published 29 September, 2025
  • Received 9 May 2025
  • Accepted 6 August 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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