Spontaneous emission and photon dynamics in dielectric microcavities

D. P. Fussell, M. M. Dignam, M. J. Steel, C. Martijn de Sterke, and R. C. McPhedran
Phys. Rev. A 74, 043806 – Published 5 October 2006

Abstract

We consider spontaneous emission in dielectric microcavities with multiple resonances that may overlap in both position and frequency. By projecting the Green tensor onto a set of quasimodes associated with the resonances, we derive the reduced spontaneous emission rate. To demonstrate the accuracy and computational efficiency of our approach, we model spontaneous emission in a two-dimensional photonic crystal with two coupled defects. Employing a quantum mechanical interpretation, we show that the spontaneous emission involves both direct decay into the individual quasimodes and photon transfer between the quasimodes. The quantum path interference between these different emission channels can cause the spontaneous emission rate to differ dramatically from the rate obtained by the summation over resonant line shapes. We also show how our approach can be used to determine the emission into particular quasimodes of multiple-resonance microcavities.

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  • Received 29 May 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.74.043806

©2006 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

D. P. Fussell1, M. M. Dignam1, M. J. Steel2,3, C. Martijn de Sterke3, and R. C. McPhedran3

  • 1Department of Physics, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7K 3N6
  • 2RSoft Design Group, Inc., 65 O’Connor Street, Chippendale, New South Wales 2008, Australia
  • 3Centre for Ultrahigh Bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS), School of Physics, University of Sydney, Sydney 2006, Australia

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Vol. 74, Iss. 4 — October 2006

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