ABSTRACT
This chapter presents simple theoretical models which take into account the effect of dephasing of the vacuum fields on the spontaneous emission in a microcavity. This would be necessary to evaluate the limit of the capability of microcavity-based solid-state optical devices. The dephasing of the quantized fields, i.e., the vacuum fields, which is our main concern, results from the energy exchange between fields and medium polarizations interacting with phonon reservoirs, that is, from the dispersion. A symmetric structure of the system allows us to use the one-way time-evolution of field b, in order to obtain a motion equation of the field, which is in general derived from a round-trip time-evolution of the field. The alteration of the spontaneous emission in a microcavity can be viewed as a manifestation of the self-interference of the quantized fields, which are vacuum fields.
