SAW-driven optical microcavities for device applications

The optical properties of microcavity (MC) polaritons parametrically driven by a surface acoustic wave (SAW) is analysed. In this case, the resonant acousto-optic nonlinearity gives rise to a very short `light-acoustic wave´ interaction length even for rather modest acoustic intensities. This can effectively be used for possible device applications. Two schemes `SAW pumping-optical probing´ are proposed for semiconductor MCs: one deals with the use of bulk incoming/outgoing photons, which resonantly couple with MC polaritons through a top distributed Bragg reflector, and another involves in-plane light delivered to and collected from the lateral surfaces of a MC chip