Enhancement and inhibition of spontaneous emission rates in nanobubbles

This Letter considers the effect of a nanobubble with walls of finite thick ness on the radiative decay rate of an excited atom located in its center. It is demonstrated that where the walls are dense enough, there can take pl ace an effective reduction of the spontaneous radiative decay rate, whereas in the case where the bubble is located in an optically dense medium this rate increases. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.