Polariton Hall Effect in Transition-Metal Dichalcogenides

TL;DR

This paper explores the properties of exciton-polaritons in 2D transition-metal dichalcogenides within optical cavities, revealing tunable spectral features and a potential polariton Hall effect driven by Berry phase enhancement.

Contribution

It introduces a microscopic analysis showing how strong light-matter coupling in 2D materials can induce a polariton Hall effect through Berry phase manipulation.

Findings

Discovery of tunable polariton splitting

Breaking of light-matter selection rules

Enhanced Berry phase leading to polariton Hall effect

Abstract

We analyze the properties of strongly coupled excitons and photons in systems made of semiconducting two-dimensional transition-metal dichalcogenides embedded in optical cavities. Through a detailed microscopic analysis of the coupling we unveil novel, highly tunable features of the spectrum, that result in polariton splitting and a breaking of light-matter selection rules. The dynamics of the composite polaritons is influenced by the Berry phase arising both from their constituents and from the confinement-enhanced coupling. We find that light-matter coupling emerges as a mechanism that enhances the Berry phase of polaritons well beyond that of its elementary constituents, paving the way to achieve a polariton Hall effect.