Improving the Sensitivity of Planar Fabry–Pérot Cavities via Adaptive Optics and Mode Filtering. Issue 4 (10th December 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Czuchnowski, Jakub; Prevedel, Robert
• Is Part Of: Advanced optical materials. Volume 9:Issue 4(2021)
• Page Start: n/a
• Page End: n/a
• Publication Date: 2020-12-10
• Subjects: adaptive optics -- Fabry–Pérot cavities -- optical sensing; Optical materials -- Periodicals; Photonics -- Periodicals; 620.11295
• DOI: 10.1002/adom.202001337
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2195-1071

Abstract

Abstract: Fabry–Pérot (FP) cavities are fundamental and ubiquitous optical elements frequently used in various sensing applications. Here, the authors introduce a general theoretical framework to study arbitrary light–cavity mode interactions for planar FPs and show how optical aberrations, intrinsic to the interrogating beam or due to imperfect cavities, reduce optical sensitivity by exciting higher‐order spatial modes in the cavity. It is found that particular Zernike aberrations play a dominant role in sensitivity degradation, and that the general loss of sensitivity can be significantly recovered by appropriate wavefront correction or mode filtering. The authors then demonstrate their theoretical findings also experimentally and show that in practice the sensitivity of realistic planar FP micro‐cavity sensors can be improved up to threefold by a synergistic combination of adaptive optics and passive mode filtering. Abstract : The authors introduce a general theoretical framework to study arbitrary light–cavity interactions for planar Fabry–Perot (FP) cavities and explain how optical aberrations reduce optical sensitivity by exciting higher‐order spatial modes. Furthermore, it is shown experimentally that the sensitivity of realistic FP cavities can be improved up to threefold by a synergistic combination of adaptive optics and mode filtering.