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Physical Review A

Spontaneous emission in planar semiconductor microcavities displaying vacuum Rabi splitting

Izo I. Abram, J. L. Oudar

Published May 1, 1995• 25 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We calculate the spontaneous-emission characteristics of a quantum-well exciton embedded in the center of a planar microcavity and compare them with the emission characteristics in a single-mode cavity with lateral confinement of the electromagnetic field. The results indicate that because the modal structure of a planar microcavity consists of a spectrally dense continuum, the exciton decays into the cavity continuum with a time constant close to the free-space spontaneous-emission lifetime, even under conditions in which its spectrum displays the vacuum Rabi splitting. This behavior contrasts with the case of cavities with lateral in-plane confinement of the field, in which the vacuum Rabi splitting is the signature of a dramatic modification of the spontaneous-emission lifetime. The technological implications of this difference are discussed.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.51.4116

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We calculate the spontaneous-emission characteristics of a quantum-well exciton embedded in the center of a planar microcavity and compare them with the emission characteristics in a single-mode cavity with lateral confinement of the electromagnetic field. The results indicate that because the modal structure of a planar microcavity consists of a spectrally dense continuum, the exciton decays into the cavity continuum with a time constant close to the free-space spontaneous-emission lifetime, even under conditions in which its spectrum displays the vacuum Rabi splitting. This behavior contrasts with the case of cavities with lateral in-plane confinement of the field, in which the vacuum Rabi splitting is the signature of a dramatic modification of the spontaneous-emission lifetime. The technological implications of this difference are discussed.
Semiconductor quantum microcavities are interesting physical systems in which fundamental interactions between light and excitons can be explored. For example, in the weak - coupling limit, modified excitonic spontaneous emission can be observed. In the strong-coupling limit, the cavity field modes and the quantum well exciton modes become coupled; the normal modes of the system are "cavity-polaritons" [1,2]. For in-plane wavevectors k// near zero, the normal modes are split by the dipole coupling between the excitons and the cavity vacuum field. This splitting is often referred to as a vacuum-Rabi splitting (VRS), as it has the same physical origin as the VRS observed in the interactions of atoms with single-mode cavities. The physical system in this work consists of a λ planar microcavity formed by two distributed-Bragg reflectors, with five GaAs quantum wells situated in the center of the cavity. In all the experiments described here, the exciton and cavity modes are on resonance (the low-field VRS is 6 meV for this sample).
The spectral response of a monolithic semiconductor quantum microcavity with quantum wells as the active medium displays mode splitting when the quantum wells and the optical cavity are in resonance. This effect can be seen as the Rabi vacuum-field splitting of the quantum-well excitons, or more classically as the normal-mode splitting of coupled oscillators, the excitons, and the electromagnetic field of the microcavity. An exciton oscillator strength of 4\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}1012{10}^{12}1012 ${\mathrm{cm}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}2}$ is deduced for 76-\AA{} quantum wells.
Recently, cavity quantum electrodynamic (QED) effects in semiconductor microcavities have been of considerable interest since, in the weak-coupling regime they play an important role in selectively increasing spontaneous emission into the lasing mode of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSEL’s) [1,2], enabling low-threshold, high speed, and high efficiency. In a strong-coupling regime, the normal modes of the coupled system are superpositions of the exciton and cavity modes. Hence the impulsively excited system will evolve in time with the energy oscillating between the exciton and cavity modes. This is known as a vacuum-Rabi oscillation (VRO), with a frequency of Ω=d¯⋅E¯/@@h, where d¯ is the transition dipole moment of atoms and E¯ the vacuum-field strength. Of course, VRO are observable only when the cavity lifetime and exciton dephasing time are long enough compared to VRO period. Recently, Weisbuch et al. [3] have reported an observation of the normal-mode vacuum Rabi splitting in 2-D-exciton/planar-DBR microcavities. The observed splittings were as large as 6 meV in reflection and transmission spectra, implying 690-fs vacuum Rabi oscillations.
We have used femtosecond optical spectroscopy to observe directly the vacuum Rabi oscillations associated with the coupled exciton-photon mode splitting in a semiconductor quantum microcavity. When the microcavity is impulsively excited by a coherent short optical pulse, the time-resolved emission from the cavity shows beats corresponding to the oscillation between cavity and exciton modes, with a decay corresponding to approximately twice the cavity lifetime. Interferometric pump-probe measurements clearly show the coherent evolution of the cavity polarization.
Low-temperature time-resolved luminescence experiments with 3-ps resolution have been performed on quantum-well excitons embedded in a nonguiding half-wave microcavity that displays the exciton-photon mode splitting. The spontaneous-emission dynamics of each of the two split components was studied as a function of the exciton-cavity detuning under resonant optical excitation. The spontaneous-emission decay rate is significantly modified with respect to the cavityless situation and its detuning dependence is accounted for by the strong radiative coupling between the radiant exciton states and the cavity photon modes. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.
We have used femtosecond optical spectroscopy to observe directly the vacuum Rabi oscillations associated with the coupled exciton-photon mode splitting in a semiconductor quantum microcavity. When the microcavity is impulsively excited by a coherent short optical pulse, the time-resolved emission from the cavity shows beats corresponding to the oscillation between cavity and exciton modes, with a decay corresponding to approximately twice the cavity lifetime. Interferometric pump-probe measurements clearly show the coherent evolution of the cavity polarization.