Active photonic lattices: Is greater than blackbody intensity possible?

The emission from a radiating source embedded in a photonic lattice is investigated. The photonic lattice spectrum was found to deviate from the blackbody distribution, with intracavity emission suppressed at certain frequencies and significantly enhanced at others. For rapid population relaxation, where the photonic lattice and blackbody populations are described by the same thermal distribution, it was found that the enhancement does not result in output intensities exceeding those of the blackbody. However, for slow population relaxation, the photonic lattice population has a greater tendency to deviate from thermal equilibrium, resulting in output intensities exceeding those of the blackbody.