EXCITON POLARITONS IN QUANTUM-WELLS EMBEDDED IN WAVE-GUIDES AND MICROCAVITIES

We study the interaction of quantum-well excitons with the electromagn etic eigenmodes of a planar dielectric waveguide or microcavity. By us e of a closed expression for the photon Green's function, analytical r esults for the polariton dispersion relation in terms of the elements of the electromagnetic transfer matrix can be given. We solve the disp ersion relation in a leaky waveguide and find qualitative agreement wi th the time-of-flight experiments of Ogawa et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 64 , 796 (1990)]. For a cavity with mirrors formed by quarter-wave layers we simplify the dispersion relation and recover the analytical result s of Savona et al. [Solid State Commun. 93, 733 (1995)]. As an example of a more complicated mirror design we consider the experiment of Fis her el al. [Phys. Rev. B 51, 2600 (1995)] and find very good agreement with their temperature-dependent data. (C) 1996 Optical Society of Am erica.