Thermo-refractive noise in silicon nitride microresonators
Abstract
Thermodynamic noise places a fundamental limit on the frequency stability of dielectric optical resonators. Here, we present the characterization of thermo-refractive noise in photonic-chip-based silicon nitride microresonators and show that thermo-refractive noise is the dominant thermal noise source in the platform. We employed balanced homodyne detection to measure the thermo-refractive noise spectrum of microresonators of different diameters. The measurements are in good agreement with theoretical models and finite element method simulations. Our characterization sets quantitative bounds on the scaling and absolute magnitude of thermal noise in photonic chip-based microresonators. An improved understanding of thermo-refractive noise can prove valuable in the design considerations and performance limitations of future photonic integrated devices.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1901.07112,
title = {Thermo-refractive noise in silicon nitride microresonators},
author = {Guanhao Huang and Erwan Lucas and Junqiu Liu and Arslan S. Raja and Grigory Lihachev and Michael L. Gorodetsky and Nils J. Engelsen and Tobias J. Kippenberg},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1901.07112},
year = {2019}
}