Spontaneous emission in planar semiconductor microcavities displaying vacuum Rabi splitting

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Abstract
We calculate the spontaneous-emission characteristics of a quantum-well exciton embedded in the center of a planar microcavity and compare them with the emission characteristics in a single-mode cavity with lateral confinement of the electromagnetic field. The results indicate that because the modal structure of a planar microcavity consists of a spectrally dense continuum, the exciton decays into the cavity continuum with a time constant close to the free-space spontaneous-emission lifetime, even under conditions in which its spectrum displays the vacuum Rabi splitting. This behavior contrasts with the case of cavities with lateral in-plane confinement of the field, in which the vacuum Rabi splitting is the signature of a dramatic modification of the spontaneous-emission lifetime. The technological implications of this difference are discussed.