Ultra-Strong Light-Matter Coupling Regime with Polariton Dots

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the achievement of an ultra-strong light-matter coupling regime with a record 48% mode splitting, using semiconductor quantum wells and zero-dimensional resonators, supported by a microscopic quantum theory.

Contribution

It reports the first experimental observation of the highest ratio of mode splitting in a light-matter system and provides a theoretical explanation for the nonlinear polariton splitting as a dynamical self-interaction effect.

Findings

Measured a 48% mode splitting, the highest in such systems.

Confirmed the nonlinear polariton splitting as a dynamical self-interaction.

Validated the theoretical model with experimental results.

Abstract

The regime of ultrastrong light-matter interaction has been investigated theoretically and experimentally, using zero-dimensional electromagnetic resonators coupled with an electronic transition between two confined states of a semiconductor quantum well. We have measured a splitting between the coupled modes that amounts to 48% of the energy transition, the highest ratio ever observed in a light-matter coupled system. Our analysis, based on a microscopic quantum theory, shows that the nonlinear polariton splitting, a signature of this regime, is a dynamical effect arising from the self-interaction of the collective electronic polarization with its own emitted field.