Modification of spontaneous emission in photonic crystals

Zhengwen Yang, Dong Yan, Kan Zhu +5 more

Thomas Møller Søndergaard

Ivan S. Nikolaev, Peter Lodahl, Karin Overgaag +4 more

Peter Lodahl, Willem L. Vos

Priya Priya, Rajesh V. Nair

The propagation and emission of light in a real photonic crystal is routinely affected by the intrinsic disorder and its finite-size. Thus, theoretical calculation based on the notion of a defect free crystal with an infinite thickness is irrational in the real world experiments. Here, we report an acute modification of light propagation and emission induced by the finite-size of the crystal. We have measured the emission intensity and rate from single domain of the crystal to study the finite size effect on the spontaneous emission suppression. The results show spatial fluctuation of spontaneous emission suppression across domains that have a linear scaling with crystal size. The results have implications in contriving devices pertaining to controlled spontaneous emission such as in cavity quantum electrodynamics.

Sergey V. Gaponenko, V. N. Bogomolov, Eugene P. Petrov +8 more

Photonic crystals based on silica colloidal crystals (artificial opals) exhibit pronounced stopbands for electromagnetic wave propagation and the corresponding modification of the photon density of states in the visible range. These spectrally selective features can be enhanced by impregnating opals with higher refractive materials like, e.g., polymers. Doping of these structures with dye molecules, semiconductor nanoparticles (quantum dots), and rare-earth ions provides a possibility to examine the challenging theoretical predictions of the inhibited spontaneous emission in photonic bandgap (PBG) materials. First experiments are discussed in which pronounced modification of spontaneous emission spectra and noticeable changes in decay kinetics were observed.