Direct laser writing of whispering gallery microcavities by two-photon polymerization

We demonstrate that high-Q polymer whispering gallery microcavities can be directly written by the two-photon polymerization of zirconium/silicon hybrid sol-gel, benefiting from the high spatial resolution and three-dimensional nature of this direct laser writing technique. The quality factors of the fabricated whispering gallery microcavities are up to 1.48 x 10(5) limited by the material absorption. The surface roughness is less than 12 nm. This opens the way to fabricate intricate three-dimensional microcavities for the fundamental and applied physics research based on optical resonators. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3517493]