Spontaneous emission and metal-clad microcavities

Results are presented demonstrating the potential for enhancing spontaneous emission (SpE) in metal-clad microcavities. Emitters are placed in a microcavity containing one or more metallic layers, and are coupled to surface plasmon polariton (SPP) modes of the structure. Enhancing the SpE rate by similar to 25 is shown to be possible, whilst still ensuring that most of the emission takes place into the SPP mode. It is proposed that this emission be extracted from microcavity structures by Bragg scattering the surface modes from wavelength scale periodic microstructure in the plane of the microcavity. The competition between coupling these modes to radiation and to dissipation in the metal is considered and the implication of these results for extracting light from thin film emissive devices is discussed. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.