SPONTANEOUS EMISSION OF QUANTUM-WELL EXCITONS IN PLANAR DIELECTRIC MULTILAYER CAVITIES

The spontaneous emission of quantum well excitons may be significantly altered by embedding the quantum well in a microcavity. We present theoretical results for the spontaneous emission based on the quantum field theory of interaction between excitons and electromagnetic eigenmodes of a multilayer dielectric cavity. Depending on the design of the cavity and the in-plane wavevector Q(parallel-to) the emission can be enhanced or inhibited as compared to a QW not embedded in a cavity. We show that in the exciton-pole-approximation the enhancement/inhibition factor is given by the reciprocal normalization constant of the radiative electromagnetic modes.