Shaping Optical Microresonators on the Surface of Optical Fibers With Negative Effective Radius Variations

We examine moderate CO₂ laser heating as a method of forming negative effective radius variations in conventional optical fiber. Fiber samples were subjected to focused CO₂ laser radiation in the form of 100 ms pulses with power 0.36 to 1.3 W and thermalization time up to 2.2 s. Fiber temperatures reached 200 to 300 degrees Celsius in each pulse. The temper atures are significantly smaller than the glass transformation temperature, which is nearly 1500 °C. We show that short CO₂ laser pulses may introduce negative variations up to 5 nm. The magnitude of the introduced variation increases roughly linearly for up to 6 pulses, and then fiber saturation is achieved. We reveal that it is possible to produce optical whispering gallery modes resonators in low-temperature heating mode and create a triangular-shape microresonator solely with the negative variations. The negative variations may also occur in peripheral areas of high-temperature heated fiber while introducing positive effective radius variations. To eliminate it, we propose low-temperature fiber annealing before high-temperature variations introducing. The negative variations may also be implemented to develop a new independent approach of shaping optical whispering gallery modes microresonators.