Size Dependence of Confined Optical Modes in Photonic Quantum Dots

Confined optical modes in semiconductor microcavities with lateral sizes between 5 and 1 μm have been investigated by optical spectroscopy. In the laterally patterned structures the optical mode spectrum of the vertical cavity splits into several lines. With decreasing lateral size the modes shift to higher energies, and the splitting between the modes increases. The observed dot size variation of the optical eigenmodes is in quantitative agreement with numerical calculations of quantized photon states in these three-dimensional optical cavities.