Highly anisotropic decay rate of single quantum dots in photonic crystal membranes

We have measured the variation of the spontaneous emission rate with polarization for self-assembled single quantum dots in two-dimensional photonic crystal membranes. We observe a maximum anisotropy factor of 6 between the decay rates of the two bright exciton states. This large anisotropy is attributed to the substantially different projected local density of optical states for differently oriented dipoles in the photonic crystal.