Investigation of possible microcavity effect on lasing threshold of nonradiative-scattering-dominated semiconductor lasers

The effect of enhanced rate of spontaneous emission on gain and lasing threshold of semiconductor microcavity lasers has not been discussed clearly. Some reports have suggested that the lasing threshold in microcavities could possibly be lowered due to the so-called Purcell effect. Here, we argue that gain in weakly coupled semiconductor cavities is a local phenomenon, which occurs due to stimulated emission induced by an electromagnetic excitation and remains unaffected by the cavity boundary conditions. Hence, the Purcell effect in microcavities filled uniformly with a gain medium should not lead to a reduction in the laser’s threshold pump density, provided radiative scattering is not the dominant relaxation mechanism in the excited state. A systematic experimental investigation of laser threshold in parallel-plate semiconductor microcavity terahertz quantum-cascade lasers of different dimensions was found to be in accordance with our arguments. VC 2012 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3678595]