Effect of cavity mode volume on photoluminescence from silicon photonic crystal nanocavities

We experimentally investigated photoluminescence (PL) from silicon photonic crystal nanocavities with different mode volumes at room temperature. The integrated cavity mode intensity, which was estimated from the observed PL signal by considering extraction and collection efficiencies for each cavity mode, increased as the cavity mode volume decreased. This result suggests that smaller cavities have larger mode emission efficiency per volume than that for larger cavities at room temperature. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3582035]