FIG. 1.

Optical resonant cavity excitation. (a) A rendering of the spherical resonant microcavity inside the detection chamber, highlighting the location of the optical field. (b) An optical micrograph of the SiO₂ microsphere microcavity before lipid bilayer adhesion. (c) A FEM simulation of the optical mode in the cavity and buffer. (d) The normalized radial intensity distribution at the cross section of the device. The green line indicates the device:buffer interface. A portion of the optical field clearly extends into the buffer and is able to interact with the ∼5–10 nm bilayer.