Very strong coupling in GaAs based optical microcavities

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that GaAs-based optical microcavities can achieve very strong exciton-photon coupling, enabling robust polaritons and potential room-temperature polariton lasers without wide bandgap materials.

Contribution

It introduces a simple design metric to attain coupling constants exceeding exciton binding energy in GaAs microcavities, enhancing polariton stability and device prospects.

Findings

Coupling constant surpasses exciton binding energy in GaAs microcavities.

Enhanced polariton stability against phonon collisions.

Potential for room-temperature high-power exciton-polariton lasers.

Abstract

We show that when following a simple cavity design metric, a quantum well exciton-microcavity photon coupling constant can be larger than the exciton binding energy in GaAs based optical microcavities. Such a very strong coupling significantly reduces the relative electron-hole motion and makes the polaritons robust against phonon collisions. The corresponding polariton dissociation and saturation boundaries on the phase diagram are much improved, and our calculations suggest the possibility of constructing a room temperature, high power exciton-polariton laser without resorting to wide bandgap semiconductors.