Exciton polaritons in single and coupled microcavities

Recent work on strong coupling exciton-polariton phenomena in single and co upled microcavities is presented. We describe experiments for single caviti es where the strong coupling nature of the excitations manifests itself. It is also shown that coupled cavities enable optically induced coupling betw een macroscopically separated exciton states to be achieved, and polaritons with strongly anisotropic properties to be realised. Results for both inor ganic and organic microcavities are presented. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B. V. All rights reserved.