Microcavity effects in an external-cavity surface-emitting laser

Microcavity-induced lasing threshold reduction and modulation of the spontaneous emission coherence length with cavity length in an external-cavity resonant-periodic-gain, surface-emitting laser is reported. In contrast to comparing different epitaxial growths, external-cavity operation allows changing the cavity length without affecting material properties as well as arbitrarily long resonator lengths. The transition to the macrocavity domain is observed by extending the cavity length beyond the spontaneous emission coherence length. The maximum change in the spontaneous emission rate induced by the cavity QED effect in the presence of resonant periodic gain is calculated. As expected, for cavities longer than several wavelengths, microcavity Fabry-Perot resonance effects dominate over cavity QED in determining the cavity-normal spontaneous emission power and coherence length. A simple model of the cavity-normal spontaneous emission coherence length and spontaneous emission power emitted from a Gaussian source placed in an ideal Fabry-Perot cavity is consistent with our observations.