Impact of optical confinement on elastic polariton scattering in semiconductor microcavities

Parametric polariton scattering is investigated in low-dimensional semiconductor microcavities, such as quasi-zero-dimensional micro-pillars and quasi-one-dimensional wire structures. In both cases, parametric scattering could be demonstrated in continuous wave experiments. However, the selection rules differ from the planar cavity case, where the total energy and momentum have to be conserved. In quasi-zero-dimensional cavities, momentum conservation does not apply. In quasi-one-dimensional resonators besides energy and momentum, the parity of the involved states has to match with a parity conservation constraint.