Glass-based 1-D dielectric microcavities

Abstract We have developed a reliable RF sputtering techniques allowing to fabricate glass-based one dimensional microcavities, with high quality factor. This property is strongly related to the modification of the density of states due to the confinement of the gain medium in a photonic band gap structure. In this short review we present some of the more recent results obtained by our team exploiting these 1D microcavities. In particular we present: (1) Er 3+ luminescence enhancement of the 4 I 13/2  →  4 I 15/2 transition; (2) broad band filters based on disordered 1-D photonic structures; (3) threshold defect-mode lasing action in a hybrid structure.