Whispering gallery modes in silicon-nanocrystal-coated silica microspheres

Silica microspheres were deposited into two-dimensional periodic arrays and coated with a thin layer of silicon nanocrystals. The luminescence from the silicon nanocrystals coupled into the whispering gallery modes of the spheres, with Q factors that depended on a range of parameters including sphere size, position on the sphere, viewing direction, and thickness of the nanocrystal coating. Scattering from the film–sphere and/or the sphere–substrate contacts resulted in a lower Q for modes that intersect these regions. The highest Q factors obtained in this work were ∼1500. The results suggest that silica microspheres may be promising candidates for high-Q cavities that incorporate silicon nanocrystals for cavity QED or nonlinear optical effects.