Abstract
We investigate the complex mode structure in microcavities with multidimensional optical confinement. Our active material is composed of the organic blend Alq(3): DCM, embedded into a microcavity containing arrays of photonic wires, facilitating strong lateral confinement. We directly record the energy dispersion for one (k) over right arrow vector component while the second lateral (k) over right arrow component is scanned. Thereby, we obtain a detailed dispersion tomogram of the cavity resonances, showing excellent agreement with our optical model. We are able to exceed the lasing threshold and observe stimulated emission not only from the bottom of the cavity parabola, but also from higher order modes.