Cavity mode emission in weakly coupled quantum dot - cavity systems

We study the origin of bright leaky-cavity mode emission and its influence on photon statistics in weakly coupled quantum dot semiconductor cavity systems, which consist of a planar photonic-crystal and several quantum dots. We present experimental measurements that show that when the system is excited above the barrier energy, then bright cavity mode emissions with nonzero detuning are dominated by radiative recombinations of deep-level defects in the barrier layers. Under this excitation condition, the second-order photon autocorrelation measurements reveal that the cavity mode emission at nonzero detuning exhibits classical photon-statistics, while the bare exciton emission shows a clear partial anti-bunching. As we enter a Purcell factor enhancement regime, signaling a clear cavity-exciton coupling, the relative weight of the background recombination contribution to the cavity emission decreases. Consequently, the anti-bunching behavior is more significant than the bare exciton case - indicating that the photon statistics becomes more non-classical. These measurements are qualitatively explained using a medium-dependent master equation model that accounts for several excitons and a leaky cavity mode. (c) 2009 Optical Society of America