Multimodal strong coupling of photonic crystal cavities of dissimilar size

A photonic crystal three missing holes nanocavity, having only a few modes, is coupled to a 60 missing holes long multimode cavity, both fabricated in the same InGaAsP membrane. The coupling was studied in detail by the photothermal tuning of the small cavity over about three free spectral ranges of the large cavity. Strong coupling effects, involving at least three large cavity modes simultaneously, were observed from level anticrossing data. The observations are excellently reproduced by a model of coupled Fabry Perot resonators. © 2012 American Institute of Physics.