title: Generalized effective mode volume for leaky optical cavities.
abstract: We show explicitly how the commonly adopted prescription for calculating effective mode volumes is wrong and leads to uncontrolled errors. Instead, we introduce a generalized mode volume that can be easily evaluated based on the mode calculation methods typically applied in the literature, and which allows one to compute the Purcell effect and other interesting optical phenomena in a rigorous and unambiguous way.
authors.affiliation: DTU Fotonik, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark. ptkr@fotonik.dtu.dk
authors.forename: P T
authors.initials: PT
authors.lastname: Kristensen
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Van Vlack
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hughes