Fabrication, Characterization and Applications of Crystalline Whispering Gallery Mode Resonators

We review recent progress in fabrication, characterization, and applications of ultra-high-Q crystalline whispering gallery mode (WGM) resonators. We report on the experimental observations of power-dependent, non-exponential decay of light stored in WGMs caused by stimulated Raman scattering in the resonator host material. We show that a proper thermal annealing leads to a significant increase of the quality factors of the resonators. Finally, we demonstrate optical continuous wave parametric oscillations in lithium niobate WGM resonators.