title: Optical instability and self-pulsing in silicon nitride whispering gallery resonators.
abstract: We report time domain observations of optical instability in high Q silicon nitride whispering gallery disk resonators. At low laser power the transmitted optical power through the disk looks chaotic. At higher power, the optical output settles into a stable self-pulsing regime with periodicity ranging from hundreds of milliseconds to hundreds of seconds. This phenomenon is explained by the interplay between a fast thermo-optic nonlinearity within the disk and a slow thermo-mechanic nonlinearity of the structure. A model for this interplay is developed which provides good agreement with experimental data and points out routes to control this instability.
authors.affiliation: Université Paris Diderot, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Laboratoire Matériaux et Phénomènes Quantiques, CNRS-UMR 7162, 10 rue Alice Domon et Léonie Duquet, 75013 Paris, France. christophe.baker@univ-paris-diderot.fr
authors.forename: Christophe
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Baker
authors.forename: Sebastian
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Stapfner
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Parrain
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ducci
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Leo
authors.forename: Eva M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Weig
authors.forename: Ivan
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Favero
mesh_terms: D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D017655:Silicon Compounds / Q000737:chemistry*; D020349:Surface Plasmon Resonance / Q000295:instrumentation*; D014159:Transducers
chemical_list: D017655:Silicon Compounds; C032734:silicon nitride