Controlled spontaneous emission in room-temperature semiconductor microcavities

Abstract

Data are presented demonstrating controlled spontaneous emission in room-temperature AlGaAs-GaAs Fabry–Perot microcavities, which utilize high contrast Bragg reflectors. The reflector materials are a CaF2/ZnSe combination. A GaAs quantum well contained in the microcavities is excited using a low power He-Ne laser, and the spontaneous emission characteristics are measured in terms of spectral characteristics and radiation patterns. The measured data are compared with calculations which predict controlled spontaneous emission in such structures. We find that the dominant effects on spontaneous emission in these thin layer structures are due to cavity controlled emission into allowed optical modes and stress induced dipole orientation in the GaAs quantum well.