Approximation accuracy of Gaussian-optical approach applied to two-dimensional optical microcavities

The Gaussian-optical approach is often used to obtain approximate solutions of stable periodic orbit resonances for two-dimensional optical microcavities of various cavity shapes. In this work, the accuracy of the approximate solutions is investigated systematically for simple two-mirror stable semiconductor optical microcavities. We examined the correlation coefficient between the mode intensity profile of approximate solutions and that of numerical solutions obtained using the Fox-Li approach. We found that degradation of the approximation accuracy due to deformation of the end mirrors increases as the beam spot size of the approximate solution increases.