Variational principle in whispering gallery mode sensor responses

We present a variational method for whispering gallery modes (WGMs) and apply it to sensor responses of WGMs in a spherical resonator to two types of perturbation for which we know the exact answers. The perturbations are adsorption of a thin dielectric layer and a uniform change in the surroundings' refractive index. The variational method gives the perturbed wave function and, if a suitable trial function is chosen, the resonance wavelength shift up to the second order in the perturbation. The linear part is identical to the result of the first-order perturbation theory. (C) 2008 Optical Society of America.