Microcavity Quantum Electrodynamics: a Dissertation on Light-matter Interaction with Semiconductor Quantum Dots in Microcavities

This work is devoted, in the framework of cavity Quantum Electrodynamics, to the interaction of light with matter under an incoherent continuous pumping. As such, it describes physical systems like a quantum dot, that provides excitons (matter), inside a semiconductor microcavity, that provides photons (light). We unravel how the interplay between decay (losses of particles) and pumping (injection of particles) determines the physics of the half-light, half-matter particles that are realized in such systems. We study both weak and strong coupling, fermion and boson emitters, linear and nonlinear regimes, one quantum dot and many.