We present time-resolved emission experiments of semiconductor quantum dots in silicon 3D inverse-woodpile photonic band gap crystals. A systematic study is made of crystals with a range of pore radii to tune the band gap relative to the emission frequency. The decay rates averaged over all dipole orientations are inhibited by a factor of 10 in the photonic band gap and enhanced up to 2× outside the gap, in agreement with theory. We discuss the effects of spatial inhomogeneity, nonradiative decay, and transition dipole orientations on the observed inhibition in the band gap.

We study experimentally time-resolved emission of CdSe quantum dots in an environment with a controlled local density of states (LDOS). The decay rate is measured versus frequency and as a function of distance to a mirror. We observe a linear relation between the decay rate and the LDOS, allowing us to determine the size-dependent quantum efficiency and oscillator strength. We find that the quantum efficiency decreases with increasing emission energy mostly due to an increase in nonradiative decay. For the first time, we manage to obtain the oscillator strength of the important class of CdSe quantum dots. The oscillator strength varies weakly with frequency in agreement with behavior of quantum dots in the strong confinement limit. Surprisingly, the measured absolute values are a factor of 5 below theoretically calculated values. Our results are relevant for applications of CdSe quantum dots in spontaneous emission control and cavity quantum electrodynamics. * URL: www.photonicbandgaps.com arXiv:0808.3191v1 [physics.optics]

We have studied the reflectivity of CMOS-compatible three-dimensional silicon inverse woodpile photonic crystals at near-infrared frequencies. Polarization-resolved reflectivity spectra were obtained from two orthogonal crystal surfaces using an objective with a high numerical aperture. The spectra reveal broad peaks with maximum reflectivity of 67% that are independent of the spatial position on the crystals. The spectrally overlapping reflectivity peaks for all directions and polarizations form the signature of a broad photonic band gap with a relative bandwidth up to 16%. This signature is supported with stopgaps in plane wave bandstructure calculations and with the frequency region of the expected band gap. arXiv:1012.5263v2 [physics.optics]