It is usually assumed that when performing a photoluminescence experiment on a microcavity containing an inhomogeneously broadened quantum dot ensemble, the cavity mode appears as a positive peak with a linewidth that reflects the mode quality factor $Q$. We show in this paper that this conclusion is in general not true and that the measured mode linewidth depends strongly on the excitation power for microcavities having large Purcell factors. We analyze theoretically this effect in the case of the micropillar cavity, and we show that the same microcavity can give rise to a large variety of photoluminescence spectral signatures depending on the excitation power and collection setup. We finally give guidelines to measure the real cavity quality factor by photoluminescence.

• Received 7 August 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.78.235306