Photonic Crystal Microcavity with Colloidal PbSe Quantum Dots

Photonic crystal microcavities (PCM) have the ability to control and modify the spontaneous emission from quantum dots embedded inside. These devices have several applications one of which is their potential to realize single photon sources. Typically semiconductor quantum dots are grown embedded as a thin layer in a semiconductor-based heterostructure such as GaAs and then a PCM is fabricated into the wafer. This involves relatively complex processes and is limited to certain substrates only. Since Silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrates and silicon fabrication technology are well developed, we have fabricated PCMs on SOI wafer followed by dispersing colloidal PbSe quantum dots inside photonic crystal cavity holes through a polymer which is spin coated on the device. This process is simple and cost effective