Nonlinear optics of normal-mode-coupling semiconductor microcavities

The authors review the nonlinear optical properties of semiconductor quantum wells that are grown inside high-Q Bragg-mirror microcavities. Light-matter coupling in this system is particularly pronounced, leading in the linear regime to a polaritonic mixing of the excitonic quantum well resonance and the single longitudinal cavity mode. The resulting normal-mode splitting of the optical resonance is observed in reflection, transmission, and luminescence experiments. In the nonlinear regime the strong light-matter coupling influences the excitation-dependent bleaching of the normal-mode resonances for nonresonant excitation, leads to transient saturation and normal-mode oscillations for resonant pulsed excitation and is responsible for the density-dependent signatures in the luminescence characteristics. These and many more experimental observations are summarized and explained in this review using a microscopic theory for the Coulomb interacting electron-hole system in the quantum well that is nonperturbatively coupled to the cavity light field.