Wavelength variation of laser emission along the entire rim of slightly deformed microdroplets

Abstract

The frequencies of the normal azimuthal modes of a slightly deformed droplet that is axisymmetric about its flow direction are no longer degenerate but vary with position along the droplet rim. We measured the wavelength variation along the entire rim of a dye-lasing droplet with a spectrograph and a CCD array. We determined the amplitude and the shape of the droplet deformation from the observed and predicted parabolic dependence of wavelength variation with distance along the spectrograph slit.