Loss-induced Purcell enhancement in PT-broken whispering gallery microcavities

Abstract

Parity-time (PT)-symmetry brings various opportunities for electromagnetic field manipulation and light–matter interaction, such as modification of spontaneous emission. However, previous works mainly focused on the behavior of spontaneous emission at exceptional points or in the PT-symmetry situation. Here, we theoretically demonstrate loss-induced Purcell enhancement in PT-broken whispering gallery microcavities. In the PT-broken phase, one of the supermodes decays slowly thereby playing a leading role in spontaneous emission. As the loss increases, the quality factor of this supermode is higher and the mode volume is smaller, so that the Purcell factors will be larger if the emitter is placed near the lossless cavity. Our findings indicate that loss can enhance the interaction between light and matter, which could be applied to single photon emission, non-Hermitian photonic devices, etc.