Nonguiding half-wave semiconductor microcavities displaying the exciton-photon mode splitting

We present a monolithic epitaxially grown λ/2 semiconductor microcavity that contains two InGaAs quantum wells in its AlAs spacer. This particular design displays greatly reduced coupling of the quantum well emission to the in-plane guided modes. The reflection and luminescence spectra of this structure at 77-K display an exciton-photon splitting of 4 meV with as few as two quantum wells, indicating the possibility of a strong coupling of the spontaneous emission of the excitons to the vertical cavity modes. This cavity design should thus be well suited for improving the coupling efficiency of the spontaneous emission to the lasing mode in vertically emitting structures.