Enhancement and Extraction of Spontaneous Emission from 2-d Thin Film Photonic Crystals

Abstract : The results of photoluminescence measurements on thin slab InGaAs/InP photonic crystals are presented, demonstrating a possibility of spontaneous emission engineering at room temperature using 2-d periodic thin film photonic crystals. The angle dependence of the PL spectral peaks is shown to track the photonic band dispersion. This revealed the band structure of the leaky conduction bands within the optical escape cone. Up to a 15-fold emission intensity enhancement was observed and explained in terms of a combination of Purcell enhancement, and Bragg extraction of high wave vector photon. Different design concepts for improving led performance were demonstrated.