Water-Walled Microfluidics Makes an Ultimate Optical Finesse

Abstract

Liquids serve microcavity research ever since Ashkins studies on optical resonances in levitating droplets to recent optofluidic resonators. Droplets can provide optical quality factor (Q) in proximity to the limit restricted by water absorption and radiation loss. However, water micro-drops vaporize quickly due to their large area to volume ratio. Here we fabricate a water-air interface that almost entirely surrounds our device, allowing for more than 1,000,000 recirculations of light (finesse). We sustain the droplets for longer than 16 hours using a nano-water-bridge that extends from the droplet to a practically-unlimited distant-reservoir that compensates for evaporation. Our device exhibits surface tension 8000-times stronger than gravity that self-stabilizes its shape to a degree sufficient to maintain critical coupling as well as to resolve split modes. Our device has 98 percents of their surrounding walls made strictly of water-air interfaces with concave, convex or saddle geometries, suggesting an arbitrary-shape microfluidic technology with water-walls almost all-over.