Analysis of the optical force in the Micro Ring Resonator

We study the optical force in a micro ring resonator coupled to a bus waveguide, using the coupled mode theory and a numerical Finite Element Method. We show that the resonance enhancement of the force is diminished by the opposing contributions of the attractive and the repulsive forces related to the symmetric and the anti symmetric modes in the coupling region. We show that this limiting factor can be removed by adding asymmetry to the system, e. g. by modifying one of the waveguides. Furthermore, we study for the first time a combined system in which the micro ring resonator is coupled to a one dimensional photonic crystal waveguide. This modified geometry allows further enhancement of the optical force via the combination of optical resonances and slow light effect. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America