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Integrated Photonics Research

Spontaneous emission in optical microcavities

Hervé Rigneault, S. Robert, Serge Monneret

Published Jan 1, 1996• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Optical mimcavities are resonators that have at least one dimension on the order of a single optical wavelength. These structures enable one to control the optical emission properties of materials placed inside them. They can for example, modify the spatial distribution of radiation power, change the spectral width of the emimd light, and enhance or suppress the spontaneous emission rate [l]. In addition to being attractve for studying the fundamental physics of the interaction between luminescent atoms and vacuum field, optical mimavities hold technological promise for constructing nove1 kinds of light emitting devices.

DOI
10.1364/ipr.1996.ituc3

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Optical mimcavities are resonators that have at least one dimension on the order of a single optical wavelength. These structures enable one to control the optical emission properties of materials placed inside them. They can for example, modify the spatial distribution of radiation power, change the spectral width of the emimd light, and enhance or suppress the spontaneous emission rate [l]. In addition to being attractve for studying the fundamental physics of the interaction between luminescent atoms and vacuum field, optical mimavities hold technological promise for constructing nove1 kinds of light emitting devices.
Optical microcavities are resonators that have at least one dimension on the order of a single optical wavelength. These structures enable one to control the optical emission properties of materials placed inside them. They can, for example, modify the spatial distribution of radiation power, change the spectral width of the emitted light, and enhance or suppress the spontaneous emission rate. In addition to being attractive for studying the fundamental physics of the interaction between materials and vacuum field fluctuations, optical microcavities hold technological promise for constructing novel kinds of light-emitting devices. One of their most dramatic potential features is thresholdless lasing. In this way and others, controlled spontaneous emission is expected to play a key role in a new generation of optical devices.
Introduction Ever since 1916/17 when Einstein argued [45] [46] that spontaneous emission must occur if matter and radiation are to achieve thermal equilibrium, physicists have believed that spontaneous emission is an inherent quantum mechanical property of atoms and that excited atoms inevitably radiate. This view, however, overlooks the fact that spontaneous emission is a consequence of the coupling of quantized energy states of atoms with the quantized radiation field, and is a manifestation of quantum noise or of emission ‘stimulated’ by ‘vacuum fluctuations’. An infinity of vacuum states is available to the photon radiated by an excited atom placed in free space, leading to the effective irreversibility of such emissions. If these vacuum states are modified, as for example by placing an excited atom between closely spaced mirrors or in a small cavity (essentially the Casimir effect), spontaneous emission can be greatly inhibited or enhanced or even made reversible. Recent advances in atomic and optical techniques have made it possible to control and manipulate spontaneous emission. A whole new branch of quantum optics called ‘cavity QED’ has developed since 1987 utilizing these dramatic changes in spontaneous emission rates in cavities to construct new kinds of microscopic masers or micromasers that operate with a single atom and a few photons or with photons emitted in pairs in a two-photon transition.
It is well known that spontaneous emission is not an intrinsic atomic property, but rather results from the coupling of the atom to the vacuum modes of the electromagnetic field. As such, it can be modified by tailoring the electromagnetic environment into which the atom can radiate. This was already realized by Purcell, who noted that the spontaneous emission rate can be enhanced if the atom placed inside a cavity is resonant with one of the cavity is resonant with one of the cavity modes, and by Kleppner, who discussed the opposite case of inhibited spontaneous emission. It has also been recognized that spontaneous emission need not be an irreversible process. Indeed, a system consisting of a single atom coupled to a single mode of the electromagnetic field undergoes a periodic exchange of excitation between the atom and the field. This periodic exchange remains dominant as long as the strength of the coupling between the atom and a cavity mode is itself dominant. 23 refs., 6 figs.
Spontaneous emission from an excited atomic state reflects the properties of the surrounding vacuum field. By placing the atom near a metallic surface or in a cavity, one can modify the spectral density of the vacuum modes coupled to it and either enhance1 or inhibit2 spontaneous emission. Large enhancement3 or inhibition effects have been obtained recently in microwave experiments involving either Rydberg atoms4 or a trapped electron5 radiating in cavities whose sizes were of the order of one-tenth of a millimeter to a centimeter.
The transverse distributions of intensity inside and outside an optical cavity produced by spontaneous emission from atoms inside the cavity are reviewed. The mode properties inside a closed passive one-dimensional cavity are summarised and the spatial distributions of emitted light for a passive cavity with partially transmitting mirrors are discussed. A qualitative theory describes the effects of an amplifying medium inside the cavity, covering the regimes both below and above the lasing threshold. Expressions are derived for the angular spread of the output light in the presence of gain. A theory based on rigorous general relations between gain and noise provides more complete results for the spontaneous emission noise from an amplifying slab within an optical cavity.