Experimental study of disorder in a semiconductor microcavity

Year: 2001

Authors: Gurioli M., Bogani F., Wiersma D., Roussignol P., Cassabois G., Khitrova G., Gibbs H.

Autors Affiliation: Istituto Nazionale di Fisica della Materia and Dipartimento di Scienza dei Materiali, Università Milano Bicocca, Via Cozzi 53 20125 Milano, Italy; Istituto Nazionale di Fisica della Materia and Dipartimento di Energetica, Università di Firenze, Via Santa Marta 3, 50134-Firenze, Italy; Istituto Nazionale di Fisica della Materia and Laboratorio Europeo di Spettroscopia non Lineare, Università di Firenze, Largo Enrico Fermi 2, 50125 Firenze, Italy; Laboratoire de Physique de la Matière Condensée de l’Ecole Normale Supérieure, 24 rue Lhomond, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France; Optical Sciences Center, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, United States

Abstract: A detailed study of the structural disorder in wedge semiconductor microcavities (MC’s) is presented. We demonstrate that images of the coherent emission from the MC surface can be used for a careful characterization of both intrinsic and extrinsic optical properties of semiconductor NIC’s. The polariton broadening can be measured directly, avoiding the well-known problem of inhomogeneous broadening due to the MC wedge. A statistical analysis of the spatial line shape of the images of the MC surface shows the presence of static disorder associated with dielectric fluctuations in the Bragg reflector. Moreover, the presence of local fluctuations of the effective cavity length can be detected with subnanometer resolution. The analysis of the resonant Rayleigh scattering (RRS) gives additional information on the origin of the disorder. We find that the RRS is dominated by the scattering of the photonic component of the MC polariton by disorder in the Bragg reflector. Also the RRS is strongly enhanced along the [110] and [1 (1) over bar0] directions. This peculiar scattering pattern is attributed to misfit dislocations induced by the large thickness of the mismatched AlGaAs alloy in the Bragg mirrors.

Journal/Review: PHYSICAL REVIEW B

Volume: 64 (16)      Pages from: 165309  to: 165309

KeyWords: arsenic; gallium, article; crystal; diffraction; optics; photon; semiconductor; statistical analysis
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.64.165309

Citations: 33
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