Abstract: The rapid development of microfabrication and assembly of nanostructures has opened up many opportunities to miniaturize structures that confine light, producing unusual and extremely interesting optical properties. This book addresses the large variety of optical phenomena taking place in confined solid state structures: microcavities. Microcavities represent a unique laboratory for quantum optics and photonics. They exhibit a number of beautiful effects, including lasing, superfluidity, super-radiance, and entanglement. The book is written by four practitioners strongly involved in experiments and theories of microcavities. The introductory chapters present the semi-classical and quantum approaches to description of light-matter coupling in various solid state systems, including planar cavities, pillars, and spheres; introduce exciton-polaritons, and discuss their statistics and optical properties. The weak and strong exciton-light coupling regimes are discussed further with emphasis on the Purcell effect, lasing, optical parametric oscillations, and Bose-Einstein condensation of exciton polaritons. The last chapter discusses polarization and spin properties of cavity polaritons. The book also contains portraits of scientists who gave key contributions to classical electromagnetism, quantum optics, and exciton physics.

Keywords: microcavity, optics, exciton, nano-structure, cavity, laser, semiconductor