Theory of fluorescence in three-dimensional photonic crystals

Nipun Vats(1), Kurt Busch(2) and Sajeev John(1)

(1) Department of Physics, University of Toronto, 60 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 1A7 Canada

(2) Institute for Condensed Matter Theory, Universitat Karlsruhe, P.O. Box 6980, 76128 Karlsruhe, Germany

We present a general formalism for the description of fluorescence from optically-active media in a photonic crystal structure possessing a photonic band-gap or pseudogap. An electromagnetic field expansion in terms of Bloch modes of the crystal is used to develop the equations of fluorescence in terms of the local density of photon modes available to the active medium. We then obtain fluorescence spectra and dynamics for both simple model photon dispersions and for realistic photonic crystals. Our formalism is shown to provide a valuable diagnostic tool in the analysis of the properties of fabricated photonic crystal materials. Furthermore, the method can be extended to determine the viability of realizing predicted quantum optical phenomena in photonic band-gap materials.