Inuence of support structure on microdisk

resonator performance
Shouyuan Shi
Dennis W. Prather, MEMBER SPIE
Liuqing Yang
James Kolodzey
University of Delaware
Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering
Newark, Delaware 19716
E-mail: dprather@ee.udel.edu
Abstract. Cylindrical dielectric and semiconducting microdisks are be-
coming attractive for use as electromagnetic resonators for optical and
terahertz-frequency devices. The effects of the substrate and the support
pedestal on microdisk performance, however, are not well understood
due to limitations of conventional analytical techniques. We present a
study of the inuence of the support structure, namely, the substrate and
pedestal, on microdisk resonator performance using the nite-difference
time-domain method. The eld distributions, resonant frequencies, and
Q factors of the microdisk are computed at various distances from the
substrate and for different pedestal sizes. Results show that the support-
ing structure can signicantly distort the eld distribution in the disk, and
therefore have signicant effects on both resonant frequency and Q fac-
tor, which are major parameters in microdisk design. 2003 Society of
Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. [DOI: 10.1117/1.1534597]
Subject terms: microdisk resonator; Q factor; resonant frequency; pedestal inu-
ence on resonator.
Paper 020185 received May 13, 2002; revised manuscript received Aug. 13,
2002; accepted for publication Aug. 14, 2002.
1 Introduction
Microdisks have received renewed interests since McCall
et al.
1
demonstrated the semiconductor microdisk laser in
1992. To provide electromagnetic feedback, semiconductor
microdisks have been used in a variety of lasers, including
the quantum cascade laser based on intersubband transi-
tions in quantum wells,
2,3
in which case active regions were
incorporated into the disk to provide gain. Dielectric micro-
disks have also been used as resonators for terahertz
applications.
4
In general, microdisks offer several desirable
properties such as very high quality factors Q factors,
simple fabrication and analysis, and suitability for large-
scale/high-density integration. The mode connement and
Q factors exceeding 10,000 offered by microdisks are su-
perior to the linear Fabry-Pe

rot resonators, which require

cleaving to provide a reecting mirror surface. Recently,
the whispering gallery modes of a microdisk were mea-
sured using evanescent mode coupling into nearby linear
waveguides.
4
In addition, several studies using both ana-
lytic and numerical methods have been used
58
to deter-
mine the resonant frequencies and Q factors of the disk,
which are the critical parameters in microdisk design. Most
of these studies, however, apply only to microdisks sus-
pended in air. To this end, the effects of the substrate and
pedestal, on which the microdisks will be fabricated, were
not considered. For this reason, in this paper we present a
numerical study, based on the nite-difference time-domain
FDTD method,
9
that examines the effect of the pedestal,
microdisk thickness, and the proximity of the underlying
substrate on the Q factor of the resonator. As we show, such
effects can seriously degrade the Q factor in certain situa-
tions. Therefore, because these effects are important factors
in the design and analysis of microdisks, we examine their
behavior in this paper.
2 Analysis Method
In this application, an efcient interpolation approach in
conjunction with the FDTD method is employed to analyze
microdisk performance.
10
A main advantage of the FDTD
method over alternative frequency-domain methods, e.g.,
the method of moment MoM and the nite-element
method FEM, for this application is that the resonant fre-
quencies of all the modes within in a specied bandwidth
can be calculated in a single simulation. In contrast,
frequency-domain methods must be swept over the fre-
quency range of interest to determine the response for each
mode. In addition, to further reduce computational cost, the
axisymmetric structure of a microdisk enables a simplied
axially symmetric FDTD formulation, also referred to as
2.5-D or body of revolution BOR algorithm, instead of a
full three-dimensional 3-D implementation can be used.
As such, the computational cost of analysis is dramatically
reduced.
In our formulation of the FDTD we used the perfectly
matched layer PML absorbing boundary condition to
truncate both the free space and the substrate computational
region.
11
Because the dimension of the substrate is gener-
ally much greater than that of the microdisk, the substrate is
treated as semi-innite in the lower half space. The
schemes of the modeled structure and computational region
are shown in Figs. 1a and 1b, respectively. Different
boundary conditions are applied in correspondence with the
physical properties of each boundary
i
, where
1
repre-
sents the axis of the microdisk, which requires no boundary
condition;
2
and the upper part of
3
are PML absorbing
boundaries simulating free space; and
4
and the lower part
of
3
are absorbing boundaries simulating the semi-innite
substrate.
383 Opt. Eng. 42(2) 383387 (February 2003) 0091-3286/2003/$15.00 2003 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers
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While performing FDTD analysis, the time-domain re-
sponse at selected points is stored. To obtain the resonant
frequencies and Q factors, one can simply take the fast
Fourier transform FFT of the time-domain response, and
the resonant frequencies can be derived from the local
maximum of the frequency-domain response. The Q factors
can be computed from the following expression:
Q
f
0
f
, 1
where f
0
is the resonant frequency, and f is the 3-dB
bandwidth. To achieve high accuracy in resonant frequen-
cies and Q factors using this method, an extremely long
computational time can become necessary.
To overcome this limitation, we use a Pade

method for
resonant frequency interpolation in conjunction with the
FFT technique.
9
Applying this technique to the frequency
response determined from a small number of time samples
enables accurate determination of the resonant frequencies
and Q factors.
3 Results and Discussion
To begin our study we used a microdisk that has a radius of
0.8 m and a thickness of 0.18 m. The refractive index of
the disk is n3.5, which is representative of a semiconduc-
tor material. As shown in Fig. 1a, the microdisk is sup-
ported by a pedestal located a certain distance above the
semi-innite substrate. The substrate and the pedestal are
made of the same material. Before studying the effects of
the support structure, we rst computed the resonant fre-
quencies and Q factors of the disk in free space, in order to
establish a comparison benchmark. These results are shown
in Table 1.
3.1 Effects of Substrate
To study the effects introduced by the substrate alone, we
set the refractive index of the pedestal to 1. We then deter-
mined the resonant frequencies, Q factors, and eld distri-
butions of the microdisk at different distances from the sub-
strate to see the effects of the substrate.
The resonant frequencies and Q factors of the disk are
plotted as functions of height separation from the bottom
of the disk to the top of the substrate for several hybrid
e-m modes and are shown in Figs. 2a and 2b, respec-
tively. The height varies from 0.09 m half the thickness
of the disk to 2.10 m about 12 times the thickness of the
disk. The fourth, fth, and sixth modes in the azimuthal
direction and the rst two modes in radial direction were
studied.
In Fig. 2a, we can see that except for small shifts, i.e.,
when the disk is very close to the substrate, the resonant
frequencies of all the modes agree with the free-space value
very well. Thus, the effect of the substrate on the resonant
frequencies is neglectable when the disk is placed 0.18 m,
which equals the thickness of the disk, or farther away from
the substrate.
However, as the height is increased, the Q factors of all
the modes monotonically shift toward a higher value, at
rst, and then converge at the free-space value, as shown in
Fig. 2b. In an ideal microdisk, the mode that propagates
along the edge of the disk, e.g., the fundamental whispering
gallery mode the rst-order radial mode has the highest Q
factor. This is true in free space, or when the effect of the
substrate is negligible. However, from Fig. 2b we can see
that when the disk is placed very close to the substrate
(height0.2 m), the Q factor of the second-order radial
mode is higher than that of the rst-order radial mode for a
given azimuthal mode. When the disk is very close to the
substrate, the Q factor is signicantly affected by the sub-
strate. This results from energy coupling into radiation
modes within the substrate, which thereby lowers the Q
factor. The lower order radial mode always has a lower
frequency, or longer wavelength, than the higher order
mode. Therefore, the distance from the disk to the substrate
appears closer for the lower order mode when expressed
in terms of the wavelength. Therefore, it is quite reasonable
that the lower order mode couples into the substrate stron-
Fig. 1 (a) Diagram of microdisk, substrate, and cylindrical pedestal
and (b) scheme of the computational region.
Table 1 Resonant frequencies and Q factors of the microdisk
(radius0.80 m, thickness0.18 m) in free space.
Mode Resonant Frequency (THz) Q Factor
HE
41
173.6899 195
HE
42
235.6699 24
HE
51
194.3002 907
HE
52
250.0636 110
HE
61
213.9924 5037
HE
62
267.1609 243
Shi et al.: Inuence of support structure . . .
384 Optical Engineering, Vol. 42 No. 2, February 2003
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ger than the higher order modes and thereby has a lower Q
factor. When the disk is located farther from the substrate,
the Q factor becomes less affected by the substrate, and will
be determined mostly by the structure of the microdisk it-
self.
The distributions of E

and E
z
components of the HE
41
mode are shown in Fig. 3. The reason we selected these two
eld components is that they are the strongest among the
six eld components. This indicates that the whispering
gallery mode propagates along the azimuthal direction, as
expected. In Fig. 3b, the microdisk is located 0.09 m
half the thickness of the disk away from the substrate.
Compared with Fig. 3a, where no substrate exists, the
distortion of the eld distribution is obvious and much of
the energy is coupled into the substrate, as discussed be-
fore. It is interesting to note that the Q factors were very
low in the former case because the substrate induced sig-
nicant energy loss and the energy stored inside the disk
was thereby decreased.
3.2 Effects of Pedestal
In the next step, we included a cylindrical pedestal into our
structure. The refractive index of the pedestal was set the
same as that of the microdisk, which was 3.5. Maintaining
the height as 2.10 m, we increased the radius of the ped-
Fig. 2 (a) Resonance frequencies of different modes versus height,
where height is the distance from the substrate to the disk, and (b) Q
factors of different modes versus height.
Fig. 3 HE
41
mode eld distribution of microdisk (radius
0.8 m,thickness0.18 m); (a) in free space; (b) with substrate,
where the distance from the substrate is 0.09 m; and (c) with sub-
strate and cylindrical pedestal, where the distance from the sub-
strate is 0.18 m and the radius of pedestal is 0.40 m.
Shi et al.: Inuence of support structure . . .
385 Optical Engineering, Vol. 42 No. 2, February 2003
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estal gradually from 0 to 0.40 m, which is half the radius
of the microdisk. As in the former case, the resonant fre-
quencies, Q factors, and eld distributions of the disk were
computed and compared. Modes HE
41
and HE
42
were stud-
ied.
The resonant frequencies and Q factors of the two
modes versus pedestal radius in terms of disk radius are
shown in Figs. 4a and 4b, respectively. As the radius of
the pedestal was increased, the resonant frequencies of the
two modes were unchanged, at rst, and began to decrease
when the ratio of pedestal radius to disk radius reached 0.3.
The effects of the pedestal on Q factors are more compli-
cated. In Fig. 4a, we can see that the Q factor of the HE
41
mode increases when the pedestal radius exceeds 40% the
disk radius. This is because of the stronger spatial conne-
ment caused by the pedestal. The Q factor of the HE
42
mode began to increase at the same point; however, it de-
clined sharply when the ratio reached 50%. Actually, the Q
factor became so small that the HE
42
mode can essentially
be neglected. The higher order radial modes tend to have
elds concentrated toward the center of the disk. However,
the center part of the disk is no longer disklike because
of the existence of the pedestal. Therefore, the second-order
radial mode becomes suppressed at a certain point.
The eld distribution of components E

and H
z
under
the effect of both pedestal and substrate is shown in Fig.
3c. In a comparison of Figs. 3b and 3c, the distortion
caused by the pedestal is evident.
4 Conclusion
By using an efcient numerical method that combines the
FDTD, PML, and Pade

interpolation techniques, we studied

the effects of the substrate and the pedestal on both fre-
quencies and Q factors for microdisk resonators.
The separation between disk and substrate required for
the design of a freestanding microdisk resonator depends
on the evanescent tail of the mode eld in the vertical di-
rection. When the thickness of disk is about 0.5 wave-
lengths in the material, the disk supports only one eld
variation vertically. Further, we found that the eld distri-
bution is obviously distorted and the disk performance is
signicantly changed when the separation of the disk from
the substrate is less then one wavelength in the material.
Such effects should seriously be considered in microdisk
design and fabrication.
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Shouyuan Shi is currently an assistant re-
search professor in the Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering, Uni-
versity of Delaware, Newark. He received
his BS, MS, and PhD degrees from Xidian
University, Xian, China, in 1991, 1994, and
1997, respectively, all in electrical engi-
neering. His research interests include
electromagnetic numerical modeling, elec-
tromagnetic imaging, antenna design, dif-
fractive optical elements, microdisk lasers,
and photonic bandgap materials and their applications.
Fig. 4 Effects of pedestal on resonant frequency and Q factor of (a)
mode HE
41
and (b) mode HE
42
.
Shi et al.: Inuence of support structure . . .
386 Optical Engineering, Vol. 42 No. 2, February 2003
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Dennis W. Prather is currently an associ-
ate professor in the Department of Electri-
cal and Computer Engineering, University
of Delaware, Newark. He is currently per-
forming research on the development of ef-
cient electromagnetic models for both the
analysis and synthesis of mesoscopic opti-
cal elements. He is also active in their fab-
rication, replication, and integration into hy-
brid optoelectronic systems.
Liuqing Yang: Biography and photograph not available.
James Kolodzey received his PhD degree
in electrical engineering from Princeton
University, New Jersey, in 1986, for re-
search on SiGe alloys. He is a professor of
electrical and computer engineering at the
University of Delaware, Newark. He has
been with IBM Corporation and at Cray Re-
search. From 1986 to 1989, he was an as-
sistant professor of electrical engineering
at the University of Illinois, Urbana-
Champaign, where he established a labo-
ratory for high-frequency device measurements at cryogenic tem-
peratures. In 1987, he worked on molecular beam epitaxy with Dr. A.
Y. Cho at AT&T Bell Laboratories. In 1990, he worked on SiC and
SiGeC alloys with Dr. F. Koch and Dr. R. Schwarz at the Technical
University of Munich. Since 1991 he has been a professor at the
University of Delaware. In 1997, he spent 9 months at the University
of Paris, Orsay, investigating optoelectronic devices. His research
interests include the electrical and optical properties of alloys of
group IV semiconductors, and their device and circuit applications.
He is currently investigating silicon germanium quantum-well de-
vices and the properties of silicon carbide alloyed with germanium.
Shi et al.: Inuence of support structure . . .
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