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P I C T U R E  G A L L E R Y :   A R C S

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The physics of Asymmetric Resonant Cavities is part of my current research. It has a direct connection to applications, and can moreover be very visual:

Asymmetric Resonant Cavity
 Pictures on this page have been reproduced for independent reviews in Laser Focus World, Physikalische Blätter (3/97), Optics and Photonics News (4/97), Yale Scientific 71 (97) and the New Haven Register (2/13/97).
This picture was chosen for the cover of Nature , Vol. 385, 1997.
It is also the Picture of the Month in Bild der Wissenschaft, 4/1997.

What is an Asymmetric Resonant Cavity anyway ? schematic ARCs are convex resonators whose fractional deformation is so large that the wave equation cannot be solved satisfactorily by perturbation techniques. In optics, they can be realized, e.g. in the form of dielectric cylinders, surrounded by air. They exhibit resonant states for which the field intensity in a cross section of the cylinder has maxima near the edge of the dielectric (red and orange), and also along well-defined lines in the outside region (green). The key to understanding these states is a one-to-one correspondence between waves and rays (red arrow).
unsplit emission Emission from the points of highest curvature is intuitively expected, and the tangential orientation follows from Snell's law of refraction. Due to phase space structure, the light here originates slightly away from the high- curvature points, but still tangential to the surface. split emission

Jens Uwe Nöckel, 04/97