Anomalous Spontaneous Emission Time in a Microscopic Optical Cavity

Abstract

We have realized total electromagnetic mode confinement in a microscopic optical, Casimir-type, cavity and detected the resonant change of the molecular fluorescence time under short-pulse excitation due to a spontaneous-atomic-decay enhancement-inhibition process (Purcell effect). This corresponds to the first realization in optics of the resonant coupling of atoms with a single mode of the radiation field.

Thermalization of a two-dimensional photonic gas in a ‘white wall’ photon box

“…Work in this direction includes the proposal of a superfluid phase transition of photons in a nonlinear cavity [12][13][14] and, albeit in the strong-coupling regime, the demonstration of a quasiequilibrium phase transition of excitonpolariton quasiparticles to 'half matter, half light' condensates [6][7][8] . In the weak-coupling regime (as in our case), optical cavities have been used to achieve a modified spontaneous emission of atoms and molecules [15][16][17] . The main idea of our experiment is to study thermalization of a photon gas, to a heat bath near room temperature (dye molecules), in a system with reduced spatial dimensionality and an energy spectrum restricted to values far above the thermal energy.…”

Single Emitters in Isolated Quantum Systems

“…These effects have first been observed by Carmichael et al [13] and De Martini et al [14]. More importantly, the probability of spontaneous emission placing a photon into the cavity is given by β = f /( f + 1).…”

Visible photoluminescence from planar amorphous silicon nitride microcavities

“…7 Also, the luminescence cross sections between the microcavity resonances are smaller than the bulk spontaneous-emission cross sections. Alteration (i.e., enhancement and inhibition) of spontaneous emission in planar microcavities has been both observed experimentally 8 and calculated theoretically. 9 These properties of the microcavities are used in resonant-cavity-enhanced (RCE) photonic devices, which are wavelength selective and ideal for wavelengthdivision multiplexing applications such as RCE photodiodes, 10 RCE light-emitting diodes, 11 vertical cavity surface emitting lasers, 12 and microdisk 13 and microwire 14 lasers.…”