Nonlinear optics of normal-mode-coupling semiconductor microcavities

TLDR

Light‑matter coupling in high‑Q Bragg‑mirror microcavities produces pronounced polaritonic mixing of excitonic quantum‑well resonances with the cavity mode in the linear regime. The review surveys the nonlinear optical properties of semiconductor quantum wells embedded in high‑Q Bragg‑mirror microcavities. The authors employ a microscopic, nonperturbative Coulomb‑electron‑hole theory coupled to the cavity field to explain the observations. Normal‑mode splitting appears in reflection, transmission, and luminescence, while nonlinear effects such as bleaching, transient saturation, oscillations, and density‑dependent luminescence arise from strong light‑matter coupling.

Abstract

The authors review the nonlinear optical properties of semiconductor quantum wells that are grown inside high-Q Bragg-mirror microcavities. Light-matter coupling in this system is particularly pronounced, leading in the linear regime to a polaritonic mixing of the excitonic quantum well resonance and the single longitudinal cavity mode. The resulting normal-mode splitting of the optical resonance is observed in reflection, transmission, and luminescence experiments. In the nonlinear regime the strong light-matter coupling influences the excitation-dependent bleaching of the normal-mode resonances for nonresonant excitation, leads to transient saturation and normal-mode oscillations for resonant pulsed excitation and is responsible for the density-dependent signatures in the luminescence characteristics. These and many more experimental observations are summarized and explained in this review using a microscopic theory for the Coulomb interacting electron-hole system in the quantum well that is nonperturbatively coupled to the cavity light field.