Photo-induced lifting of the degeneracy of excitonic states in coupled quantum microcavities

Abstract

Optically induced coupling of spatially separated quantum well excitonic states is reported from angular-dependent studies of coupled quantum microcavity structures. The coupling is observed as a lifting of the degeneracy of quantum well exciton states separated by macroscopic distances of over 2 μm. We demonstrate that the coupling arises from the exciton–photon interaction between the symmetric and antisymmetric photon modes of the coupled cavity and the symmetric and antisymmetric combinations of the degenerate excitonic states.