TEMPORAL BEATING OF NONDEGENERATE AZIMUTHAL MODES IN NONSPHERICAL MICRODROPLETS - TECHNIQUE FOR DETERMINING THE DISTORTION AMPLITUDE

Oscillations that are superimposed on the smooth, exponential decay of light from microcavity modes are observed, and they are characteristi c of the temporal beating of adjacent, degeneracy-split azimuthal mode s in distorted spheres. The perturbation theory result for the frequen cy splitting of azimuthal modes in distorted spheres is used to determ ine the distortion amplitude from the temporal oscillations associated with mode beating. The beating period can be used to determine whethe r the spectrally measured resonance linewidth Delta omega(l,n) is broa dened by closely spaced, degeneracy-split azimuthal modes of slightly nonspherical droplets. (C) 1998 Optical Society of America.