Optical microcavity

About: Optical microcavity is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2599 publications have been published within this topic receiving 72125 citations. The topic is also known as: optical microcavities.

Spontaneous lifetime control in a native-oxide-apertured microcavity

Abstract: Spontaneous lifetime control is demonstrated using very small apertured microcavities, with quantum-dot light emitters used to obtain electronic confinement within the aperture. A factor of 2.3 increase in the averaged spontaneous emission rate is achieved due to the optical confinement. The enhancement/inhibition ratio of the spontaneous emission rate tracks the optical mode size and spectral response of the apertured microcavity.

Directional Emission, Increased Free Spectral Range, and Mode $Q$ -Factors in 2-D Wavelength-Scale Optical Microcavity Structures

Abstract: Achieving single-mode operation and highly directional (preferably unidirectional) in-plane light output from whispering-gallery (WG)-mode semiconductor microdisk resonators without seriously degrading the mode Q-factor challenges designers of low-threshold microlasers. To address this problem, basic design rules to tune the spectral and emission characteristics of microscale optical cavity structures with nanoscale features by tailoring their geometry are formulated and discussed in this paper. The validity and usefulness of these rules is demonstrated by reviewing a number of previously studied cavity shapes with global and local deformations. The rules provide leads to novel improved WG-mode cavity designs, two of which are presented: a cross-shaped photonic molecule with introduced asymmetry and a photonic-crystal-assisted microdisk resonator. Both these designs yield degenerate-mode splitting, as well as Q-factor enhancement and directional light output of one of the split modes

Characteristics of a photonic bandgap single defect microcavity electroluminescent device

Abstract: A microcavity surface-emitting coherent electroluminescent device operating at room temperature under pulsed current injection is described. The microcavity is formed by a single defect in the center of a 2-D photonic crystal consisting of a GaAs-based heterostructure. The gain region consists of two 70-/spl Aring/ compressively strained In/sub 0.15/Ga/sub 0.85/As quantum wells, which exhibit a spontaneous emission peak at 940 nm. The maximum measured output power from a single device is 14.4 /spl mu/W. The near-field image of the output resembles the calculated TE mode distribution in a single defect microcavity. The measured far-field pattern indicates the predicted directionality of a microcavity light source. The light-current characteristics of the device exhibit a gradual turn-on, or a soft threshold, typical of single- or few-mode microcavity devices. Analysis of the characteristics with the carrier and photon rate equations yields a spontaneous emission factor /spl beta//spl ap/0.06.

A small mode volume tunable microcavity: Development and characterization

Abstract: We report the realization of a spatially and spectrally tunable air-gap Fabry-Perot type microcavity of high finesse and cubic-wavelength-scale mode volume. These properties are attractive in the fields of opto-mechanics, quantum sensing, and foremost cavity quantum electrodynamics. The major design feature is a miniaturized concave mirror with atomically smooth surface and radius of curvature as low as 10 μm produced by CO2 laser ablation of fused silica. We demonstrate excellent mode-matching of a focussed laser beam to the microcavity mode and confirm from the frequencies of the resonator modes that the effective optical radius matches the physical radius. With these small radii, we demonstrate wavelength-size beam waists. We also show that the microcavity is sufficiently rigid for practical applications: in a cryostat at 4 K, the root-mean-square microcavity length fluctuations are below 5 pm.

Effects of polariton-energy renormalization in the microcavity optical parametric oscillator

Abstract: The CW microcavity optical parametric oscillator (OPO) state is investigated using a theoretical treatment which includes the contributions of the pump, signal and idler populations to the renormalisation of the polariton energies (the `blue-shift'). The theory predicts the pumping conditions under which the OPO switches on, showing that a pump angle > 10 degrees is required, but there is no particular significance to the `magic-angle' where pump, signal and idler are all on resonance. The signal and idler renormalisation contributions also causes the signal emission to be driven towards the normal direction as the pump power increases above threshold.