Resonant wavelengths of whispering gallery modes in dispersive materials

Abstract

In this work we compute the resonant wavelength of whispering gallery modes for bulk-fused silica microspheres including chromatic dispersion. This is done following two methods: by solving the exact characteristic equation and, on the other hand, by solving the nonlinear equations that result for a variable refractive index in the asymptotic approximations. Similar results with both methods are obtained with differences below $1\%$ . Nevertheless, important differences are found with respect to the resonant wavelengths computed with a constant index and with a variable index. We compute the free spectral range and the quality factor, and make a comparison between the variable index and the constant index cases. The differences are of significant relevance for the free spectral range, while for the quality factor, the constant case is insensitive to the chromatic dispersion. Our work could be useful as a pathway for designing microspheres for different applications.