Comparative study of pulsed lasing in a dye-doped spherical microshell and a homogeneous microsphere

Abstract

We have observed the pulsed lasing of low-order high-Q whispering gallery modes (WGM's) in an ultrathin spherical microshell laser. Compared to a homogeneous sphere with about the same dimension, high-mode-order WGM's are strongly suppressed in the microshell, resulting in pulsed laser oscillations in the first two lowest orders of the WGM with observed quality factors of Q similar to 10(6).