Abstract

Localized laser-induced electrostrictive distortion to liquid droplets is shown to increase the input coupling of mode-locked laser pulses to optical microcavity resonances. The increase in input coupling for a given pulse is dependent on the number of preceding laser pulses, as well as on their intensities. The electrostrictive distortion locally increases the leakage rate of light from the droplet-cavity modes. For lower input intensities, the localized distortion does not significantly degrade the quality factors of those cavity modes that spatially overlap the distortion. The increased input coupling is demonstrated by a decrease in the input intensity required to generate stimulated Raman scattering in the double-resonance condition with a train of mode-locked laser pulses. The cumulative effect of too many input pulses of too great an intensity ruins the quality factors of the resonances such that there is not sufficient feedback to support the stimulated Raman scattering.

© 1997 Optical Society of America

Laser-induced radiation leakage from microdroplets

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