2-d Microcavities: Theory and Experiments

TL;DR

This paper reviews the physics of dielectric microcavities with complex mode structures, emphasizing the role of boundary geometry and chaotic dynamics in understanding and designing asymmetric resonant cavities.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of non-paraxial microcavity physics, highlighting the importance of numerical methods and chaotic dynamics for understanding boundary-coupled modes.

Findings

Ray picture aids cavity design despite complex modes

Chaotic dynamics methods are essential for asymmetric cavities

Numerical computations are often necessary for field analysis

Abstract

An overview is provided over the physics of dielectric microcavities with non-paraxial mode structure; examples are microdroplets and edge-emitting semiconductor microlasers. Particular attention is given to cavities in which two spatial degrees of freedom are coupled via the boundary geometry. This generally necessitates numerical computations to obtain the electromagnetic cavity fields, and hence intuitive understanding becomes difficult. However, as in paraxial optics, the ray picture shows explanatory and predictive strength that can guide the design of microcavities. To understand the ray-wave connection in such asymmetric resonant cavities, methods from chaotic dynamics are required.