Sensors 2011, 11(2), 1972-1991; doi:10.3390/s110201972
Review

Optical Microcavity: Sensing down to Single Molecules and Atoms

Tomoyuki Yoshie* email, Lingling Tangemail and Shu-Yu Suemail
Electrical and Computer Engineering, Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received: 16 December 2010; in revised form: 13 January 2011 / Accepted: 27 January 2011 / Published: 7 February 2011
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Optical Resonant Microsensors)
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Abstract: This review article discusses fundamentals of dielectric, low-loss, optical micro-resonator sensing, including figures of merit and a variety of microcavity designs, and future perspectives in microcavity-based optical sensing. Resonance frequency and quality (Q) factor are altered as a means of detecting a small system perturbation, resulting in realization of optical sensing of a small amount of sample materials, down to even single molecules. Sensitivity, Q factor, minimum detectable index change, noises (in sensor system components and microcavity system including environments), microcavity size, and mode volume are essential parameters to be considered for optical sensing applications. Whispering gallery mode, photonic crystal, and slot-type microcavities typically provide compact, high-quality optical resonance modes for optical sensing applications. Surface Bloch modes induced on photonic crystals are shown to be a promising candidate thanks to large field overlap with a sample and ultra-high-Q resonances. Quantum optics effects based on microcavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) would provide novel single-photo-level detection of even single atoms and molecules via detection of doublet vacuum Rabi splitting peaks in strong coupling.
Keywords: microcavity; index sensing; absorption sensing; quality factor; photonic crystal; whispering gallery mode; surface Bloch mode; single molecule; single atom; cavity QED

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Cite This Article

MDPI and ACS Style

Yoshie, T.; Tang, L.; Su, S.-Y. Optical Microcavity: Sensing down to Single Molecules and Atoms. Sensors 2011, 11, 1972-1991.

AMA Style

Yoshie T, Tang L, Su S-Y. Optical Microcavity: Sensing down to Single Molecules and Atoms. Sensors. 2011; 11(2):1972-1991.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Yoshie, Tomoyuki; Tang, Lingling; Su, Shu-Yu. 2011. "Optical Microcavity: Sensing down to Single Molecules and Atoms." Sensors 11, no. 2: 1972-1991.

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