Fiber Taper-Coupled Microresonators for Applications in Sensing and Quantum Optics

The thesis deals with optical fiber tapers as a crucial tool for applications in sensing and microresonator-based quantum optical experiments. A fibre taper is used as a waveguide to couple to an optical spherical microresonator. Small polystyrene spheres with a diameter of 50, mathrm{ mu mand 31, mathrm{ mu mare attached to a micrometer-sized taper. This results in a thermally and mechanically well isolated microresonator system for applications in thermal and gas sensing. Furthermore, a fiber taper is used to transfer and couple single diamond nanocrystals onto an optical toroidal microresonator. The diamond nanocrystals contain nitrogen vacancy defect centers which have been studied in the field of quantum information as a stable single-photon source. These experiments are steps towards controlled coupling of single NV centers to toroidal resonators and towards the investigation of cavity quantum electrodynamical effects in this promising microresonator system.