This thesis reports on the development of an array of plane-concave Fabry-Perot microcavities
containing atoms (or other quantum emitters), interconnected by UV-written
waveguides on a silica-on-silicon chip. The microcavities are formed by a mirror coated
on the end facet of the chip and an array of spherical micromirrors etched on silicon. This
is to our knowledge the first attempt at implementing the emerging coupled-cavities QED
paradigm. The device we propose possesses a degree of control, flexibility and tuning unmatched
in other suggested implementations: The atoms can be manipulated inside the
cavity by auxiliary lasers and the cavity-cavity coupling rate as well as the atom-cavity
coupling can be tuned. It is highly scalable.
Calculation of the complete (classical) optical spectrum of the device is presented. The
quantum dynamics that may eventually be observed has also been studied. Waveguide
chips containing couplers and phase shifter have been fabricated. We have successfully
demonstrated the operation of the elementary sub-systems: the strong optical coupling
between a microcavity and a waveguide resonator, and the tunable strong coupling between
two evanescently coupled waveguide resonators.
No experiments with atoms or other quantum emitters were attempted, because the
waveguide propagation loss is so large that no quantum physics can be observed. There
is hope that this can be overcome in the future by using other waveguide technologies.