Spontaneous emission into planar multi-dielectric microcavities: Theoretical and experimental analysis of rare earth ion radiations

Spontaneous emission control for rare earth ions implanted inside planar multidielectric microcavities is investigated theoretically and experimentally. Rigorous classical electrodynamics analyses are presented and compared in order to compute the electromagnetic power provided by sources located inside planar dielectric multilayer structures. Radiation patterns and lifetime measurements are performed in Ta2O5/SiO2 microcavities implanted with erbium and praseodymium ions. Although we demonstrate a significant enhancement of the spontaneous emission in a direction normal to the layer (up to 30%), we show that a large amount of the emitted power is carried by the guided modes of the structures. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.