Measurement of the internal lasing intensity distribution of a dye-doped pendant drop

The lasing intensity distribution made inside a circular resonator formed by a dye-doped pendant drop was measured by addition of polymer particles to the dye solution to enhance the elastic-scattered light of the lasing inside the pendant drop. A theory that connects wave and ray pictures in dealing with the cavity resonance is used to calculate the internal intensity distribution. The experimental and theoretical results are in good agreement for sufficiently large densities of scattering particles, such that the cavity mode efficiency phi is approximately 1 for all resonant modes.