Thermal effects and transverse structures in semiconductor microcavities with population inversion

A model introduced for an externally driven semiconductor microresonator with vertical geometry and inverted MQW active material was extended to describe thermal effects. The dependence on the temperature of the nonlinear susceptibility through the band-gap shift and of the cavity frequency was taken into account by assuming a linear dependence on temperature in the cavity detuning. Evidence was obtained that the system is affected by both stationary and dynamical instabilities.