Annual Meeting Optical Society of America

Inhibition of spontaneous emission by a random dielectric medium

N. M. Lawandy, Jordi Martorell

Published Jan 1, 1990• 0 citations

Abstract

In 1946 Purcell showed that the spontaneous emission rate of an atomic system could be enhanced by placing it in a conducting cavity. Later, Kleppner showed that spontaneous emission could also be inhibited if the vacuum modes coupled to the atom were excluded by a structure. Most recently, we experimentally have shown that a periodic dielectric structure could alter the spontaneous emission by Bragg scattering of vacuum fluctuations.1 The structure used was a colloidal crystal with a face-centered cubic structure whose (111) planes were separated by optical dimensions.

DOI: 10.1364/oam.1990.fgg2

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