Abstract

A metal-clad optical waveguide with a semiconductor microcavity structure is proposed to increase the coupling efficiency of spontaneous emission into a lasing mode (spontaneous emission coefficient \ensuremath{\beta}) and to increase a total spontaneous emission rate simultaneously. Such a microcavity semiconductor laser with enhanced spontaneous emission has novel characteristics, including high quantum efficiency, low threshold pump rate, broad modulation bandwidth, and intensity noise reduced to below the shot-noise limit (amplitude squeezing).