Characterization of 2D-photonic crystal nanocavities by polarization-dependent photoluminescence

In this work, hexagonal defect nanocavities ("H1" and "H2") in two-dimensional photonic crystal slabs were fabricated in a half wavelength-thick semiconductor waveguide embedded with quantum dots. We characterized the cavity modes with polarization sensitive microphotoluminescence. The polarization property of the spontaneous emission was shown to be an effective approach for detecting the symmetry of the modes, from which the mode structure for an H2-cavity was experimentally verified for the first time.