Direct Writing of Room Temperature Polariton Condensate Lattice

Realizing lattices of exciton polariton condensates has been of much interest owing to the potential of such systems to realize analogue Hamiltonian simulators and physical computing architectures. Here, we report the realization of a room temperature polariton condensate lattice using a direct-write approach. Polariton condensation is achieved in a microcavity embedded with host-guest Frenkel excitons of an organic dye (rhodamine) in a small-molecule ionic isolation lattice (SMILES). The microcavity is patterned using focused ion beam etching to realize arbitrary lattice geometries, including defect sites on demand. The band structure of the lattice and the emergence of condensation are imaged using momentum-resolved spectroscopy. The introduction of defect sites is shown to lower the condensation threshold and result in the formation of a defect band in the condensation spectrum. The present approach allows us to study periodic, quasiperiodic, and disordered polariton condensate lattices at room temperature using a direct-write approach.

The Exciton Model for Molecular Materials: Past, Present and Future?

In assemblies of identical molecules or chromophores, electronic excitations can be described as excitons, bound electron-hole pairs that can move from site to site as a pair in a coherent manner. The understanding of excitons is crucial when trying to engineer favorable photophysical properties through structuring organic molecular matter. In recent decades, limitations of the concept of an exciton have become clear. The exciton can hybridize with phonon and photons. To clarify these issues, the exciton is discussed within the broader context of the gauge properties of the electromagnetic force.

Tuning the Coherent Propagation of Organic Exciton-Polaritons through the Cavity Q-factor

Transport of excitons in organic materials can be enhanced through polariton formation when the interaction strength between these excitons and the confined light modes of an optical resonator exceeds their decay rates. While the polariton lifetime is determined by the Q(uality)-factor of the optical resonator, the polariton group velocity is not. Instead, the latter is solely determined by the polariton dispersion. Yet, experiments suggest that the Q-factor also controls the polariton propagation velocity. To understand this observation, the authors perform molecular dynamics simulations of Rhodamine chromophores strongly coupled to Fabry-Pérot cavities with various Q-factors. The results suggest that propagation in the aforementioned experiments is initially dominated by ballistic motion of upper polariton states at their group velocities, which leads to a rapid expansion of the wavepacket. Cavity decay in combination with non-adiabatic population transfer into dark states, rapidly depletes these bright states, causing the wavepacket to contract. However, because population transfer is reversible, propagation continues, but as a diffusion process, at lower velocity. By controlling the lifetime of bright states, the Q-factor determines the duration of the ballistic phase and the diffusion coefficient in the diffusive regime. Thus, polariton propagation in organic microcavities can be effectively tuned through the Q-factor.

High Efficiency over 15% by Breaking the Theoretical Efficiency Limit of Fluorescent Organic Light-Emitting Diodes with Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance Effects

The theoretical efficiency limit of fluorescence organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) was successfully surpassed by utilizing the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) effect with conventional emissive materials. The interaction between polaritons and plexcitons generated during the LSPR process was also analyzed experimentally. As a result, the external quantum efficiency (EQE) increased dramatically from 6.01 to 15.43%, significantly exceeding the theoretical efficiency limit of fluorescent OLEDs. Additionally, we introduced a new concept of the LSPR effect, called "LSPR sensitizer", which allowed for simultaneous improvement in color conversion and efficiency through cascade transfer of the LSPR effect. To the best of our knowledge, the EQE and the current efficiency of our LSPR-OLED are the highest among LSPR-based fluorescent OLEDs to date.

Microscopic Theory of Multimode Polariton Dispersion in Multilayered Materials

We develop a microscopic theory for the multimode polariton dispersion in materials coupled to cavity radiation modes. Starting from a microscopic light-matter Hamiltonian, we devise a general strategy for obtaining simple matrix models of polariton dispersion curves based on the structure and spatial location of multilayered 2D materials inside the optical cavity. Our theory exposes the connections between seemingly distinct models that have been employed in the literature and resolves an ambiguity that has arisen concerning the experimental description of the polaritonic band structure. We demonstrate the applicability of our theoretical formalism by fabricating various geometries of multilayered perovskite materials coupled to cavities and demonstrating that our theoretical predictions agree with the experimental results presented here.

Mid-Infrared Intersubband Cavity Polaritons in Flexible Single Quantum Well

Strong and ultrastrong coupling between intersubband transitions in quantum wells and cavity photons have been realized in mid-infrared and terahertz spectral regions. However, most previous works employed a large number of quantum wells on rigid substrates to achieve coupling strengths reaching the strong or ultrastrong coupling regime. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate ultrastrong coupling between the intersubband transition in a single quantum well and the resonant mode of photonic nanocavity at room temperature. We also observe strong coupling between the nanocavity resonance and the second-order intersubband transition in a single quantum well. Furthermore, we implement for the first time such intersubband cavity polariton systems on soft and flexible substrates and demonstrate that bending of the single quantum well does not significantly affect the characteristics of the cavity polaritons. This work paves the way to broaden the range of potential applications of intersubband cavity polaritons including soft and wearable photonics.

Polariton Dynamics in Two-Dimensional Ruddlesden-Popper Perovskites Strongly Coupled with Plasmonic Lattices

Strong coupling between light and matter can produce hybrid eigenstates known as exciton-polaritons. Although polariton dynamics are important photophysical properties, the relaxation pathways of polaritons in different coupling regimes have seen limited attention. This paper reports the dynamics of hybridized states from 2D Ruddlesden-Popper perovskites coupled to plasmonic nanoparticle lattices. The open cavity architecture of Al lattices enables the coupling strength to be modulated by varying either the lead halide perovskite film thickness or the superstrate refractive index. Both experiments and finite-difference time-domain simulations of the optical dispersion diagrams showed avoided crossings that are a signature of strong coupling. Our analytical model also elucidated the correlation between the exciton/plasmon mixing ratio and polariton coupling strength. Using fs-transient absorption spectroscopy, we found that both the upper and lower polaritons have shorter lifetimes than the excitons and that polaritons can show faster excited-state dynamics when they have access to additional energy transfer channels.

Deep Learning Analysis of Polaritonic Wave Images

Deep learning (DL) is an emerging analysis tool across the sciences and engineering. Encouraged by the successes of DL in revealing quantitative trends in massive imaging data, we applied this approach to nanoscale deeply subdiffractional images of propagating polaritonic waves in complex materials. Utilizing the convolutional neural network (CNN), we developed a practical protocol for the rapid regression of images that quantifies the wavelength and the quality factor of polaritonic waves. Using simulated near-field images as training data, the CNN can be made to simultaneously extract polaritonic characteristics and material parameters in a time scale that is at least 3 orders of magnitude faster than common fitting/processing procedures. The CNN-based analysis was validated by examining the experimental near-field images of charge-transfer plasmon polaritons at graphene/α-RuCl₃ interfaces. Our work provides a general framework for extracting quantitative information from images generated with a variety of scanning probe methods.

Metamaterial Analogues of Strongly Coupled Molecular Ensembles

The formation of polariton modes due to the strong coupling of light and matter has led to exciting developments in physics, chemistry, and materials science. The potential to modify the properties of molecular materials by strongly coupling molecules to a confined light field is so far-reaching and so attractive that a new field known as "polaritonic chemistry" is now emerging. However, the molecular scale of the materials involved makes probing strong coupling at the individual resonator level extremely challenging. Here, we offer a complementary approach based upon metamaterials, an approach that enables us to use cm-scale structures, thereby opening a new way to explore strong coupling phenomena. As proof-of-principle, we show that metamolecules placed inside a radio frequency cavity may exhibit strong coupling and show that near-field radio frequency techniques allow us, for the first time, to probe the response of individual metamolecules under strong coupling conditions.

Infrared Polaritonic Biosensors Based on Two-Dimensional Materials

In recent years, polaritons in two-dimensional (2D) materials have gained intensive research interests and significant progress due to their extraordinary properties of light-confinement, tunable carrier concentrations by gating and low loss absorption that leads to long polariton lifetimes. With additional advantages of biocompatibility, label-free, chemical identification of biomolecules through their vibrational fingerprints, graphene and related 2D materials can be adapted as excellent platforms for future polaritonic biosensor applications. Extreme spatial light confinement in 2D materials based polaritons supports atto-molar concentration or single molecule detection. In this article, we will review the state-of-the-art infrared polaritonic-based biosensors. We first discuss the concept of polaritons, then the biosensing properties of polaritons on various 2D materials, then lastly the impending applications and future opportunities of infrared polaritonic biosensors for medical and healthcare applications.

Polariton multistability in a nonlinear optomechanical cavity

We theoretically study the polariton multistability in a solid state based optomechanical resonator embedded with a quantum well and aχ⁽²⁾second order nonlinear medium. The excitonic transition inside the quantum well is strongly coupled to the optical cavity mode. The polariton formed due to the mixing of cavity photons and exciton states are coupled to the mechanical mode which gives rise to the bistable behavior. A transition from bistability to tristability occurs in the presence of a strongχ⁽²⁾nonlinearity. Switching between bistability and tristability can also be controlled using exciton-cavity and optomechanical coupling making the system highly tunable. Tristability appears at low input power making it a suitable candidate for polaritonic devices which requires low input power.

Fano Lineshapes and Rabi Splittings: Can They Be Artificially Generated or Obscured by the Numerical Aperture?

Fano resonances and Rabi splittings are routinely reported in the scientific literature. Asymmetric resonance lineshapes are usually associated with Fano resonances, and two split peaks in the spectrum are often attributed to a Rabi splitting. True Fano resonances and Rabi splittings are unequivocal signatures of coherent coupling between subsystems. However, can the same spectral lineshapes characterizing Fano resonances and Rabi splittings arise from a purely incoherent sum of intensities? Here we answer this question through experiments with a tunable Fabry-Pérot cavity containing a CsPbBr₃ perovskite crystal. By measuring the transmission and photoluminescence of this system using microscope objectives with different numerical aperture (NA), we find that even a modest NA = 0.4 can artificially generate Fano resonances and Rabi splittings. We furthermore show that this modest NA can obscure the anticrossing of a bona fide strongly coupled light-matter system. Through transfer matrix calculations we confirm that these spectral artifacts are due to the incoherent sum of transmitted intensities at different angles captured by the NA. Our results are relevant to the wide nanophotonics community, characterizing dispersive optical systems with high numerical aperture microscope objectives. We conclude with general guidelines to avoid pitfalls in the characterization of such optical systems.

Tuning of Two-Dimensional Plasmon-Exciton Coupling in Full Parameter Space: A Polaritonic Non-Hermitian System

Non-Hermitian photonic systems with gains and/or losses have recently emerged as a powerful approach for topology-protected optical transport and novel device applications. To date, most of these systems employ coupled optical systems of diffraction-limited dielectric waveguides or microcavities, which exchange energy spatially or temporally. Here, we introduce a diffraction-unlimited approach using a plasmon-exciton coupling (polariton) system with tunable plasmonic resonance (energy and line width) and coupling strength. By designing a chirped silver nanogroove cavity array and coupling a single tungsten disulfide monolayer with a large contrast in resonance line width, we show the tuning capability through energy level anticrossing and plasmon-exciton hybridization (line width crossover), as well as spontaneous symmetry breaking across the exceptional point at zero detuning. This two-dimensional hybrid material system can be applied as a scalable and integratable platform for non-Hermitian photonics, featuring seamless integration of two-dimensional materials, broadband tuning, and operation at room temperature.

Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering and Surface-Enhanced Infrared Absorption by Plasmon Polaritons in Three-Dimensional Nanoparticle Supercrystals

Surface-enhanced vibrational spectroscopy strongly increases the cross section of Raman scattering and infrared absorption, overcoming the limited sensitivity and resolution of these two powerful analytic tools. While surface-enhanced setups with maximum enhancement have been studied widely in recent years, substrates with reproducible, uniform enhancement have received less attention although they are required in many applications. Here, we show that plasmonic supercrystals are an excellent platform for enhanced spectroscopy because they possess a high density of hotspots in the electric field. We describe the near field inside the supercrystal within the framework of plasmon polaritons that form due to strong light-matter interaction. From the polariton resonances we predict resonances in the far-field enhancement for Raman scattering and infrared absorption. We verify our predictions by measuring the vibrations of polystyrene molecules embedded in supercrystals of gold nanoparticles. The intensity of surface-enhanced Raman scattering is uniform within 10% across the crystal with a peak integrated enhancement of up to 300 and a peak hotspot enhancement of 10⁵. The supercrystal polaritons induce pairs of incoming and outgoing resonances in the enhanced cross section as we demonstrate experimentally by measuring surface-enhanced Raman scattering with multiple laser wavelengths across the polariton resonance. The infrared absorption of polystyrene is likewise enhanced inside the supercrystals with a maximum enhancement of 400%. We show with a coupled oscillator model that the increase originates from the combined effects of hotspot formation and the excitation of standing polariton waves. Our work clearly relates the structural and optical properties of plasmonic supercrystals and shows that such crystals are excellent hosts and substrates for the uniform and predictable enhancement of vibrational spectra.

Population of Exciton-Polaritons via Luminescent sp3 Defects in Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

Semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are an interesting material for strong-light matter coupling due to their stable excitons, narrow emission in the near-infrared region, and high charge carrier mobilities. Furthermore, they have emerged as quantum light sources as a result of the controlled introduction of luminescent quantum defects (sp³ defects) with red-shifted transitions that enable single-photon emission. The complex photophysics of SWCNTs and the overall goal of polariton condensation pose the question of how exciton-polaritons are populated and how the process might be optimized. The contributions of possible relaxation processes, i.e., scattering with acoustic phonons, vibrationally assisted scattering, and radiative pumping, are investigated using angle-resolved reflectivity and time-resolved photoluminescence measurements on microcavities with a wide range of detunings. We show that the predominant population mechanism for SWCNT exciton-polaritons in planar microcavities is radiative pumping. Consequently, the limitation of polariton population due to the low photoluminescence quantum yield of nanotubes can be overcome by luminescent sp³ defects. Without changing the polariton branch structure, radiative pumping through these emissive defects leads to an up to 10-fold increase of the polariton population for detunings with a large photon fraction. Thus, the controlled and tunable functionalization of SWCNTs with sp³ defects presents a viable route toward bright and efficient polariton devices.

Influence of Gold Nano-Bipyramid Dimensions on Strong Coupling with Excitons of Monolayer MoS2

Rabi splitting between the longitudinal plasmon of a gold nano-bipyramid and the A exciton of monolayer MoS₂ is observed at room temperature. The dependence of the Rabi splitting on the physical dimensions of the nano-bipyramid is reported. The impact of bipyramid length, aspect ratio, and tip radius on the coupling strength is investigated. The mode volume of the nanoresonator is significantly reduced because of the sharp tips of the bipyramid, and the Rabi splitting increases with tip sharpness. The results also reveal that greater Rabi splitting is observed for larger bipyramids, contrasting with results previously reported for different nanoresonator shapes. This shows, for the first time, how the magnitude of the splitting has a different response for particular nanoresonators when tuning the size, without increasing the number of excitons coupled into the system. The Rabi splitting, at zero energy detuning between plasmon and A exciton, increases from ∼55 meV with a 70 nm-long bipyramid to ∼80 meV with a 100 nm-long bipyramid. The increase in coupling strength with size arises because of increasing confinement of the field enhancement at the bipyramid tip.

Polaritons and excitons: Hamiltonian design for enhanced coherence

The primary questions motivating this report are: Are there ways to increase coherence and delocalization of excitation among many molecules at moderate electronic coupling strength? Coherent delocalization of excitation in disordered molecular systems is studied using numerical calculations. The results are relevant to molecular excitons, polaritons, and make connections to classical phase oscillator synchronization. In particular, it is hypothesized that it is not only the magnitude of electronic coupling relative to the standard deviation of energetic disorder that decides the limits of coherence, but that the structure of the Hamiltonian-connections between sites (or molecules) made by electronic coupling-is a significant design parameter. Inspired by synchronization phenomena in analogous systems of phase oscillators, some properties of graphs that define the structure of different Hamiltonian matrices are explored. The report focuses on eigenvalues and ensemble density matrices of various structured, random matrices. Some reasons for the special delocalization properties and robustness of polaritons in the single-excitation subspace (the star graph) are discussed. The key result of this report is that, for some classes of Hamiltonian matrix structure, coherent delocalization is not easily defeated by energy disorder, even when the electronic coupling is small compared to disorder.

Strong Coupling beyond the Light-Line

Strong coupling of molecules placed in an optical microcavity may lead to the formation of hybrid states called polaritons; states that inherit characteristics of both the optical cavity modes and the molecular resonance. Developing a better understanding of the matter characteristics of these hybrid states has been the focus of much recent attention. Here, as we will show, a better understanding of the role of the optical modes supported by typical cavity structures is also required. Typical microcavities used in molecular strong coupling experiments support more than one mode at the frequency of the material resonance. While the effect of strong coupling to multiple photonic modes has been considered before, here we extend this topic by looking at strong coupling between one vibrational mode and multiple photonic modes. Many experiments involving strong coupling make use of metal-clad microcavities, ones with metallic mirrors. Metal-clad microcavities are well-known to support coupled plasmon modes in addition to the standard microcavity mode. However, the coupled plasmon modes associated with a metal-clad optical microcavity lie beyond the light-line and are thus not probed in typical experiments on strong coupling. Here we investigate, through experiment and numerical modeling, the interaction between molecules within a cavity and the modes both inside and outside the light-line. Making use of grating coupling and a metal-clad microcavity, we provide an experimental demonstration that such modes undergo strong coupling. We further show that a common variant of the metal-clad microcavity, one in which the metal mirrors are replaced by distributed Bragg reflector also show strong coupling to modes that exist in these structures beyond the light-line. Our results highlight the need to consider the effect of beyond the light-line modes on the strong coupling of molecular resonances in microcavities and may be of relevance in designing strong coupling resonators for chemistry and materials science investigations.

Room Temperature Weak-to-Strong Coupling and the Emergence of Collective Emission from Quantum Dots Coupled to Plasmonic Arrays

Colloidal quantum dot (CQD) assemblies exhibit interesting optoelectronic properties when coupled to optical resonators ranging from Purcell-enhanced emission to the emergence of hybrid electronic and photonic polariton states in the weak and strong coupling limits, respectively. Here, experiments exploring the weak-to-strong coupling transition in CQD-plasmonic lattice hybrid devices at room temperature are presented for varying CQD concentrations. To interpret these results, generalized retarded Fano-Anderson and effective medium models are developed. Individual CQDs are found to interact locally with the lattice yielding Purcell-enhanced emission. At high CQD densities, polariton states emerge as two-peak structures in the photoluminescence, with a third polariton peak, due to collective CQD emission, appearing at still higher CQD concentrations. Our results demonstrate that CQD-lattice plasmon devices represent a highly flexible platform for the manipulation of collective spontaneous emission using lattice plasmons, which could find applications in optoelectronics, ultrafast optical switches, and quantum information science.

Polariton condensate trapping by parametric pair scattering

Spatially confined, trapped polariton condensates have been shown to exhibit strong stochastic on-site spin polarization and in longer polariton condensate chains, distance controlled ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic spin couplings. Until now, little is known, on how such polariton condensates spatially separated from their exciton reservoirs are trapped and formed. Here, we investigate the properties and formation dynamics of two main families of polariton condensates, those overlapping with the pump reservoir and those in confined geometries, under pulsed nonresonant excitation. The observed reduction in polariton condensation threshold and energy blueshift in trapped case is attributed to exciton reservoir-condensate spatial separation, whereas time-resolved photoluminescence measurements, reveal distinct relaxation and condensate formation dynamics with pair parametric scattering process being the dominant relaxation mechanism in trapped geometry.

Observation of Rydberg exciton polaritons and their condensate in a perovskite cavity

The condensation of half-light half-matter exciton polaritons in semiconductor optical cavities is a striking example of macroscopic quantum coherence in a solid-state platform. Quantum coherence is possible only when there are strong interactions between the exciton polaritons provided by their excitonic constituents. Rydberg excitons with high principal value exhibit strong dipole-dipole interactions in cold atoms. However, polaritons with the excitonic constituent that is an excited state, namely Rydberg exciton polaritons (REPs), have not yet been experimentally observed. Here, we observe the formation of REPs in a single crystal CsPbBr₃ perovskite cavity without any external fields. These polaritons exhibit strong nonlinear behavior that leads to a coherent polariton condensate with a prominent blue shift. Furthermore, the REPs in CsPbBr₃ are highly anisotropic and have a large extinction ratio, arising from the perovskite's orthorhombic crystal structure. Our observation not only sheds light on the importance of many-body physics in coherent polariton systems involving higher-order excited states, but also paves the way for exploring these coherent interactions for solid-state quantum optical information processing.

Observation of Intersubband Polaritons in a Single Nanoantenna Using Nano-FTIR Spectroscopy

Strong coupling of an intersubband (ISB) electron transition in quantum wells to a subwavelength plasmonic nanoantenna can give rise to intriguing quantum phenomena, such as ISB polariton condensation, and enable practical devices including low threshold lasers. However, experimental observation of ISB polaritons in an isolated subwavelength system has not yet been reported. Here, we use scanning probe near-field microscopy and Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy to detect formation of ISB polariton states in a single nanoantenna. We excite the nanoantenna by a broadband IR pulse and spectrally analyze evanescent fields on the nanoantenna surface. We observe the distinctive splitting of the nanoantenna resonance peak into two polariton modes and two π-phase steps corresponding to each of the modes. We map ISB polariton dispersion using a set of nanoantennae of different sizes. This nano-FTIR spectroscopy approach opens doors for investigations of ISB polariton physics in the single subwavelength nanoantenna regime.

Control of Strong Light-Matter Interaction in Monolayer WS2 through Electric Field Gating

Strong light-matter coupling results in the formation of half-light half-matter quasiparticles that take on the desirable properties of both systems such as small mass and large interactions. Controlling this coupling strength in real-time is highly desirable due to the large change in optical properties such as reflectivity that can be induced in strongly coupled systems. Here we demonstrate modulation of strong exciton-photon coupling in a monolayer WS₂ through electric field induced gating at room temperature. The device consists of a WS₂ field effect transistor embedded inside a microcavity structure which transitions from strong to weak coupling when the monolayer WS₂ becomes more n-type under gating. This transition occurs due to the reduction in oscillator strength of the excitons arising from decreased Coulomb interaction in the presence of electrostatically induced free carriers. The possibility to electrically modulate a solid state system at room temperature from strong to weak coupling is highly desirable for realizing low energy optoelectronic switches and modulators operating both in quantum and classical regimes.

Surface Plasmon Enhanced Strong Exciton-Photon Coupling in Hybrid Inorganic-Organic Perovskite Nanowires

Manipulating strong light-matter interaction in semiconductor microcavities is crucial for developing high-performance exciton polariton devices with great potential in next-generation all-solid state quantum technologies. In this work, we report surface plasmon enhanced strong exciton-photon interaction in CH₃NH₃PbBr₃ perovskite nanowires. Characteristic anticrossing behaviors, indicating a Rabi splitting energy up to ∼564 meV, are observed near exciton resonance in hybrid perovskite nanowire/SiO₂/Ag cavity at room temperature. The exciton-photon coupling strength is enhanced by ∼35% on average, which is mainly attributed to surface plasmon induced localized excitation field redistribution. Further, systematic studies on SiO₂ thickness and nanowire dimension dependence of exciton-photon interaction are presented. These results provide new avenues to achieve extremely high coupling strengths and push forward the development of electrically pumped and ultralow threshold small lasers.

Photonic topological insulator with broken time-reversal symmetry

A topological insulator is a material with an insulating interior but time-reversal symmetry-protected conducting edge states. Since its prediction and discovery almost a decade ago, such a symmetry-protected topological phase has been explored beyond electronic systems in the realm of photonics. Electrons are spin-1/2 particles, whereas photons are spin-1 particles. The distinct spin difference between these two kinds of particles means that their corresponding symmetry is fundamentally different. It is well understood that an electronic topological insulator is protected by the electron's spin-1/2 (fermionic) time-reversal symmetry [Formula: see text] However, the same protection does not exist under normal circumstances for a photonic topological insulator, due to photon's spin-1 (bosonic) time-reversal symmetry [Formula: see text] In this work, we report a design of photonic topological insulator using the Tellegen magnetoelectric coupling as the photonic pseudospin orbit interaction for left and right circularly polarized helical spin states. The Tellegen magnetoelectric coupling breaks bosonic time-reversal symmetry but instead gives rise to a conserved artificial fermionic-like-pseudo time-reversal symmetry, Tp ([Formula: see text]), due to the electromagnetic duality. Surprisingly, we find that, in this system, the helical edge states are, in fact, protected by this fermionic-like pseudo time-reversal symmetry Tp rather than by the bosonic time-reversal symmetry Tb This remarkable finding is expected to pave a new path to understanding the symmetry protection mechanism for topological phases of other fundamental particles and to searching for novel implementations for topological insulators.

Strong Exciton-Plasmon Coupling in MoS2 Coupled with Plasmonic Lattice

We demonstrate strong exciton-plasmon coupling in silver nanodisk arrays integrated with monolayer MoS2 via angle-resolved reflectance microscopy spectra of the coupled system. Strong exciton-plasmon coupling is observed with the exciton-plasmon coupling strength up to 58 meV at 77 K, which also survives at room temperature. The strong coupling involves three types of resonances: MoS2 excitons, localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPRs) of individual silver nanodisks and plasmonic lattice resonances of the nanodisk array. We show that the exciton-plasmon coupling strength, polariton composition, and dispersion can be effectively engineered by tuning the geometry of the plasmonic lattice, which makes the system promising for realizing novel two-dimensional plasmonic polaritonic devices.

Hamiltonian Optics of Hyperbolic Polaritons in Nanogranules

Semiclassical quantization rules and numerical calculations are applied to study polariton modes of materials whose permittivity tensor has principal values of opposite sign (so-called hyperbolic materials). The spectra of volume- and surface-confined polaritons are computed for spheroidal nanogranules of hexagonal boron nitride, a natural hyperbolic crystal. The field distribution created by polaritons excited by an external dipole source is predicted to exhibit raylike patterns due to classical periodic orbits. Near-field infrared imaging and Purcell-factor measurements are suggested to test these predictions.

Weak lasing in one-dimensional polariton superlattices

Bosons with finite lifetime exhibit condensation and lasing when their influx exceeds the lasing threshold determined by the dissipative losses. In general, different one-particle states decay differently, and the bosons are usually assumed to condense in the state with the longest lifetime. Interaction between the bosons partially neglected by such an assumption can smear the lasing threshold into a threshold domain--a stable lasing many-body state exists within certain intervals of the bosonic influxes. This recently described weak lasing regime is formed by the spontaneously symmetry breaking and phase-locking self-organization of bosonic modes, which results in an essentially many-body state with a stable balance between gains and losses. Here we report, to our knowledge, the first observation of the weak lasing phase in a one-dimensional condensate of exciton-polaritons subject to a periodic potential. Real and reciprocal space photoluminescence images demonstrate that the spatial period of the condensate is twice as large as the period of the underlying periodic potential. These experiments are realized at room temperature in a ZnO microwire deposited on a silicon grating. The period doubling takes place at a critical pumping power, whereas at a lower power polariton emission images have the same periodicity as the grating.

The Interaction of Radio-Frequency Fields With Dielectric Materials at Macroscopic to Mesoscopic Scales

The goal of this paper is to overview radio-frequency (RF) electromagnetic interactions with solid and liquid materials from the macroscale to the nanoscale. The overview is geared toward the general researcher. Because this area of research is vast, this paper concentrates on currently active research areas in the megahertz (MHz) through gigahertz (GHz) frequencies, and concentrates on dielectric response. The paper studies interaction mechanisms both from phenomenological and fundamental viewpoints. Relaxation, resonance, interface phenomena, plasmons, the concepts of permittivity and permeability, and relaxation times are summarized. Topics of current research interest, such as negative-index behavior, noise, plasmonic behavior, RF heating, nanoscale materials, wave cloaking, polaritonic surface waves, biomaterials, and other topics are overviewed. Relaxation, resonance, and related relaxation times are overviewed. The wavelength and material length scales required to define permittivity in materials is discussed.