Spontaneous Emission Enhancement of Quantum Dots in a Photonic Crystal Wire

Abstract

Photonic wires are the simplest extended low-dimensional systems. Photonic crystal confinement confers them a divergent density of states at zero-group-velocity points, which leads to enhancement of spontaneous emission rates [D. Kleppner, Phys. Rev. Lett. 47, 233 (1981)10.1103/Phys. Rev. Lett. 47.233]. We experimentally evidence, for the first time, the spectral signature of these Purcell factor singularities, using the out-of-plane emission of InAs quantum dots buried in GaAs/AlGaAs based photonic crystal based wire. Additionally, in-plane collection at the wire exit shows large enhancements of the signal at some of the density of states singularities.