Abstract

Metallic microcavities can be used to control the spontaneous emission from such devices as fight emitting diodes. The effect of the microcavity is to modify both the spontaneous emission rate and the spatial distribution of the emitted radiation. In particular, the presence of waveguide modes in the microcavity may act to trap radiation that would otherwise be emitted; thus acting as a loss mechanism to an emissive device. By corrugating one of the metallic mirrors of the microcavity we show how these waveguide modes may be controlled. In particular we show that it is possible to reduce the mode density associated with a waveguide mode through the creation of a photonic band gap.

© 1998 IEEE