Polarization behavior of elastic scattering from a silicon microsphere coupled to an optical fiber

The polarization behavior of elastic scattering at 1473 nm is analyzed from a silicon microsphere on an optical fiber half-coupler. The 0.27 nm angular mode spacing of the resonances correlates well with the optical size of the silicon sphere. The spectral linewidths of the resonances are on the order of 10^-3 nm, which corresponds to quality factors on the order of 10⁶. The transverse magnetically polarized elastic scattering signal has higher resonance to modulation depth and background ratio than the transverse electrically polarized elastic scattering signal and is suitable for high-resolution optical filtering applications such as optical monitoring and sensing.