A High Stability, Monolithic, Spiral Reference Cavity & Integrated Source for Application to Ultra-stable Microwave Generation

In Phase I a novel spiral resonator was demonstrated that is both chip based and has high immunity to thermal noise. The system uses a silica-on-silicon platform and is therefore compatible with a wide range of photonic and electrical components. In Phase I, the optical coupling to the resonator utilized a fiber taper. In Phase II, a program is proposed to further increase the robustness of the resonator by demonstrating an on-chip waveguide for coupling. The waveguide-coupled resonator will also incorporate fiber v-grooves to assist in precise alignment of optical fibers to a fully packaged device. Integration of the resonator with a laser source will also be demonstrated with the ultimate goal of a compact, enhanced-coherence laser source.