Optical response of a GaAs microcavity near the exciton resonance

Optical response of semiconductor microcavities is particularly interesting near the exciton resonance because of the strong mode coupling between exciton and photons. In the simplest case where the cavity core is made of a bulk material, bounded by appropriate Bragg mirrors, a large Rabi-like mode splitting is observed under resonance condition (the radiation mode tuned on the excitonic transition of the bulk). This is comparable to the recent findings of quantum well embedded microcavities. In addition, a satellite structure is evidenced which can be attributed to the nonlocal susceptibility of the cavity core and the resulting center-of-mass quantization of the exciton motion. Finally, we describe a theoretical calculation which allows a close comparison with the experimental data.