Exciton/plasmon polaritons in GaAs/GaAlAs heterostructures near a metallic layer

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates strong coupling between surface plasmons and quantum well excitons in GaAs/GaAlAs heterostructures with a corrugated silver film, revealing mixed states with significant interaction energies.

Contribution

It presents experimental evidence of plasmon-exciton strong coupling in GaAs/GaAlAs heterostructures using reflectometry, highlighting the role of plasmon polarization.

Findings

Formation of plasmon/exciton mixed states with energies around 21-22 meV.

Demonstration of strong coupling between surface plasmons and quantum well excitons.

Discussion of how plasmon polarization affects the coupling characteristics.

Abstract

We report on the strong coupling between inorganic quantum well excitons and surface plasmons. For that purpose a corrugated silver film was deposited on the top of a heterostructure consisting of GaAs/GaAlAs quantum wells. The formation of plasmon/heavy-hole exciton/light-hole exciton mixed states is demonstrated with reflectometry experiments. The interaction energies amount to 21 meV for the plasmon/light-hole exciton and 22 meV for the plasmon/heavy-hole exciton. Some particularities of the plasmon-exciton coupling were also discussed and qualitatively related to the plasmon polarization.