An ultrastrongly coupled single THz meta-atom

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates ultrastrong coupling of a single THz meta-atom using advanced spectroscopy, revealing new insights into light-matter interactions at the single resonator level and enabling characterization of micron-sized samples.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method combining an asymmetric immersion lens and metasurfaces for THz spectroscopy of individual, ultrastrongly coupled meta-atoms, achieving record coupling ratios.

Findings

Achieved a normalized coupling ratio of 0.60 with a single meta-atom.

Measured a coupling ratio of 0.33 in a less doped electron gas.

Coupling strength of a single resonator matches that of an array.

Abstract

Free-space coupling to strongly subwavelength individual optical elements is a central theme in quantum optics, as it allows to control and manipulate the properties of quantum systems. In this work, we show that by combining an asymmetric immersion lens setup and complementary design of metasurfaces we are able to perform THz time-domain spectroscopy of an individual, strongly subwavelength (d/{\lambda}0=1/20) meta-atom. We unravel the linewidth dependence of planar metamaterials as a function of the meta-atom number indicating quenching of the Dicke superradiance. On these grounds, we investigate ultrastrongly coupled Landau polaritons at the single resonator level, measuring a normalized coupling ratio of {\Omega}/{\omega}=0.60 resulting from coupling of the fundamental mode to a few thousand electrons. Similar measurements on a low loss, less doped two dimensional electron gas yield a coupling ratio {\Omega}/{\omega}=0.33 with a cooperativity C=4g^2/{\kappa}{\gamma}= 94. Interestingly, the coupling strength of a coupled single resonator is the same as of a coupled array. Our findings pave the way towards the control of light-matter interaction in the ultrastrong coupling regime at the single electron/single resonator level. The proposed technique is way more general and can be useful to characterize the complex conductivity of micron-sized samples in the THz and sub-THz domain.