Abstract

The first observation of strong coupling between quantum well excitons and cavity photons, resulting in a splitting of the normal mode, has lead to intense experimental investigation of new physcial phenomena in semiconductor microcavity structures [1]. The new stable modes of the system are known as cavity-polaritons. They can be considered as a coherent oscillation of the energy from the exciton state to the photon state and therefore it was initially expected that the lifetime of this state would depend equally on the cavity photon lifetime and the exciton dephasing time. The four wave mixing process can be used as a powerful spectroscopic tool for the investigation of the coherent dynamics of cavity polaritons. which yields information on their interactions with other cavity-polaritons. phonons and defects.

© 1998 IEEE