Getting in gear: Researchers create a slow light device with high optical quality

Researchers have created a gear-shaped photonic crystal microring that increases the strength of light-matter interactions without sacrificing optical quality. The result is an on-chip microresonator with an optical quality factor 50 times better than the previous record in slow light devices that could improve microresonators used in a range of photonics applications, including sensing and metrology, nonlinear optics and cavity quantum electrodynamics.