Inhibition and enhancement of the spontaneous emission of quantum dots in micropillar cavities with radial-distributed Bragg reflectors.

Jakubczyk, Tomasz; Franke, Helena; Smoleński, Tomasz; Sciesiek, Maciej; Pacuski, Wojciech; Golnik, Andrzej; Schmidt-Grund, Rüdiger; Grundmann, Marius et al. · ACS Nano · 2014

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

We present a micropillar cavity where nondesired radial emission is inhibited. The photonic confinement in such a structure is improved by implementation of an additional concentric radial-distributed Bragg reflector. Such a reflector increases the reflectivity in all directions perpendicular to the micropillar axis from a typical value of 15-31% to above 98%. An inhibition of the spontaneous emission of off-resonant excitonic states of quantum dots embedded in the microcavity is revealed by time-resolved experiments. It proves a decreased density of photonic states related to unwanted radial leakage of photons out of the micropillar. For on-resonance conditions, we find that the dot emission rate is increased, evidencing the Purcell enhancement of spontaneous emission. The proposed design can increase the efficiency of single-photon sources and bring to micropillar cavities the functionalities based on lengthened decay times.