Enhanced spontaneous emission in microcavity optical devices

Enhanced and inhibited spontaneous emission of materials in a wavelength size cavity1 are attractive phenomena from the optical device point of view. For example, Yablonovitch2 has proposed the utilization of a spontaneous emission lifetime increase in semiconductor lasers for extremely low current operation. On the other hand, Kobayashi et al.3 proposed the concept of thresholdless lasers with the full confinement of spontaneously emitted photons in closed optical microcavities. In the latter situation, a decrease rather than increase in spontaneous emission lifetime will take place. Rate equation analysis of single-mode closed microcavity lasers reveals some interesting features incorporated with enhanced spontaneous emission.4