Time-resolved spontaneous emission of excitons in a microcavity: Behavior of the individual exciton-photon mixed states

Low-temperature time-resolved luminescence experiments with 3-ps resolution have been performed on quantum-well excitons embedded in a nonguiding half-wave microcavity that displays the exciton-photon mode splitting. The spontaneous-emission dynamics of each of the two split components was studied as a function of the exciton-cavity detuning under resonant optical excitation. The spontaneous-emission decay rate is significantly modified with respect to the cavityless situation and its detuning dependence is accounted for by the strong radiative coupling between the radiant exciton states and the cavity photon modes.