Photoluminescence from a normal-mode-coupling semiconductor microcavity

Summary form only given. Recently there has been much interest in the photoluminescence (PL) properties of semiconductor microcavities that exhibit normal mode coupling (MNC). When a narrow linewidth quantum well is grown inside a moderately high-finesse microcavity, the exciton-photon coupling results in two peaks in transmission when the cavity resonance and the exciton resonance coincide. When the cavity resonance is detuned above the exciton resonance energy and the microcavity is pumped above the mirror stopband, the PL exhibits a curious thresholdlike behavior: as the carrier density is increased, the upperbranch PL increases rapidly while the lowerbranch PL tends to saturate. This behavior was attributed to the spontaneous buildup of exciton polariton population in a microcavity.