Low temperature properties of whispering gallery modes in isotopically pure silicon 28

TL;DR

This study investigates whispering gallery mode resonators made from isotopically pure silicon-28, focusing on their low-temperature microwave properties, surface treatment effects, and potential for quantum and optical applications.

Contribution

It demonstrates the fabrication and characterization of silicon-28 WG resonators, including permittivity measurement and surface treatment optimization for high Q-factors at cryogenic temperatures.

Findings

Microwave Q-factors exceeded one million before machining.

Machining reduced Q-factors below 4×10^4, but surface treatments restored high Q.

Permittivity near 4 K measured as 11.488±0.024.

Abstract

Whispering Gallery (WG) mode resonators have been machined from a boule of single-crystal isotopically pure silicon-28. Before machining, the as-grown rod was measured in a cavity, with the best Bragg confined modes exhibiting microwave $Q$-factors on the order of a million for frequencies between 10 and 15 GHz. After machining the rod into smaller cylindrical WG mode resonators, the frequencies of the fundamental mode families were used to determine the relative permittivity of the material to be $11.488\pm0.024$ near 4 K, with the precision limited only by the dimensional accuracy of the resonator. However, the Q-factors were degraded by the machining to below $4\times10^4$. Raman spectroscopy was used to optimize post-machining surface treatments to restore high $Q$-factors. This is an enabling step for the use of such resonators for hybrid quantum systems and frequency conversion applications, as silicon-28 also has very low phonon losses, can host very narrow linewidth spin ensembles and is a material commonly used in optical applications.