On-chip resonators are promising candidates for applications in a wide range of integrated photonic fields, such as communications, spectroscopy, biosensing, and optical filters, due to their compact size, wavelength selectivity, tunability, and flexible structure. The high quality (Q) factor is a main positive attribute of on-chip resonators that makes it possible for them to provide high sensitivity, narrow bandpass, and low power consumption. In this Tutorial, we discuss methods to achieve ultra-high Q factor on-chip resonators on a silicon nitride (Si₃N₄) platform. We outline the microfabrication processes, including detailed descriptions and recipes for steps such as deposition, lithography, etch, cladding, and etch facet, and then describe the measurement of the Q factor and methods to improve it. We also discuss how to extract the basic loss limit and determine the contribution of each loss source in the waveguide and resonator. We present a modified model for calculating scattering losses, which successfully relates the measured roughness of the waveguide interface to the overall performance of the device. We conclude with a summary of work done to date with low pressure chemical vapor deposition Si₃N₄ resonator devices, confinement, cross-sectional dimensions, bend radius, Q factor, and propagation loss.

Visible-light photonic integrated circuits (PICs) promise scalability for technologies such as quantum information, biosensing, and scanning displays, yet extending large-scale silicon photonics to shorter wavelengths has been challenging due to the higher losses. Silicon nitride (SiN) has stood out as the leading platform for visible photonics, but the propagation losses strongly depend on the film’s deposition and fabrication processes. Current loss measurement techniques cannot accurately distinguish between absorption and surface scattering, making it difficult to identify the dominant loss source and reach the platform’s fundamental limit. Here we demonstrate an ultra-low loss, high-confinement SiN platform that approaches the limits of absorption and scattering across the visible spectrum. Leveraging the sensitivity of microresonators to loss, we probe and discriminate each loss contribution with unparalleled sensitivity, and derive their fundamental limits and scaling laws as a function of wavelength, film properties and waveguide parameters. Through the design of the waveguide cross-section, we show how to approach the absorption limit of the platform, and demonstrate the lowest propagation losses in high-confinement SiN to date across the visible spectrum. We envision that our techniques for loss characterization and minimization will contribute to the development of large-scale, dense PICs that redefine the loss limits of integrated platforms across the electromagnetic spectrum.

We report on the theory and experimental generation of a class of diffraction-attenuation-resistant beams with state of polarization (SOP) and intensity that can be controlled on demand along the propagation direction. This control is achieved by a suitable superposition of Bessel beams, whose parameters are systematically chosen based on closed-form analytic expressions provided by the frozen waves method. Using an amplitude-only spatial light modulator, we experimentally demonstrate three scenarios. In the first, the SOP of a horizontally polarized beam evolves to radial polarization and is then changed to vertical polarization, with the beam intensity held constant. In the second, we simultaneously control the SOP and the longitudinal intensity profile, which is chosen such that the beam’s central ring can be switched off over predefined space regions, thus generating multiple foci with different SOPs and at different intensity levels along the propagation. Finally, the ability to control the SOP while overcoming attenuation inside lossy fluids is shown experimentally. We envision our proposed method to be of great interest for many applications, such as optical tweezers, atom guiding, material processing, microscopy, and optical communications.

Frozen waves (FWs) are a class of diffraction- and attenuation-resistant beams whose intensity pattern along the direction of propagation can be chosen arbitrarily, thus making them relevant for engineering the spatial configuration of optical fields. To date, analyses of such beams have been done essentially for the scalar case, with the vectorial nature of the electromagnetic fields often neglected. Although it is expected that the field components keep the fundamental properties of the scalar FWs, a deeper understanding of their electromagnetic counterparts is mandatory in order to exploit their different possible polarization states. The purpose of this paper is to study the properties of electromagnetic FWs with radial, azimuthal, linear, circular, and elliptical polarizations under paraxial and nonparaxial regimes in nonabsorbing media. An intensity pattern is chosen for a scalar FW, and the vectorial solutions are built after it via the use of Maxwell's equations. The results show that the field components and the longitudinal component of the time-averaged Poynting vector closely follow the pattern chosen even under highly nonparaxial conditions, showing the robustness of the FW structure to parameters variations.