We study the evolution of photoluminescence (PL) from homogeneous and inhomogeneous ensembles of a few coupled QDs. We discuss the relation between signals from a given QD ensemble under strong and weak excitation (full inversion and linear response regimes): A system homogeneous enough to manifest superradiant emission when strongly inverted shows a non-exponential decay of the PL signal under spatially coherent weak excitation. In an inhomogeneous ensemble the PL decay is always nearly exponential with a qualitatively different form of the time dependence in the two excitation regimes and with a higher rate under weak excitation.
