Abstract

The confinement of the electromagnetic field in an optical cavity gives rise to cavity quantum electrodynamic effects, such as a modification of the spontaneous emission or of the nonlinear optical interactions of a material system placed inside the cavity. The control of spontaneous emission in semiconductor microcavities is one of the yet unexplored problems of physics that is most likely to have technological implications in optoelectronics through the realization of ultra-low threshold semiconductor lasers or highly-efficient LEDs.

© 1998 IEEE