Optimization of vertical cavity lasers with intracavity metal layers

The dependence of the decay of optical eigenmodes in a vertical cavity laser with intracavity metal layers on the geometric parameters of the system is investigated. It is shown that the lowest decay rate corresponds to the case where the frequency of the cavity eigenmode differs from the Bragg frequency of the cavity mirrors. The spontaneous-emission rate is calculated using the $S$-quantization formalism. It is found that, for the odd-parity high-energy mode, this rate increases by two orders of magnitude with respect to the freespace emission rate.