Robust polaritons in magnetic monolayers of CrI3

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that monolayer CrI3 can achieve strong light-matter coupling with magnetic properties, leading to well-resolved circularly polarized polaritons with large Rabi splitting and Zeeman effects, suitable for magnetopolaritonic applications.

Contribution

It reveals the potential of CrI3 monolayers for strong light-matter coupling and magnetopolaritonic phenomena through first-principles calculations and optical analysis.

Findings

Rabi splitting reaches 35 meV in monolayer CrI3.

Giant Zeeman splitting of up to 20 meV observed.

Polariton modes are well-resolved in circular polarizations.

Abstract

We show that the regime of strong-light matter coupling with remarkable magnetic properties can be realized in systems based on monolayers of chromium triiodide (CrI3). This two-dimensional material combines the presence of ferromagnetic ordering with the possibility of forming strongly-bound excitonic complexes even at room temperature. Using microscopic first-principle calculations we reveal a rich spectrum of optical transitions, corresponding to both Wannier- and Frenkel-type excitons, including those containing electrons with a negative effective mass. We show that excitons of different polarizations efficiently hybridize with a photonic mode of a planar microcavity, and due to the peculiar selection rules polariton modes become well resolved in circular polarizations. The combination of very strong optical oscillator strength of excitons and cavity confinement leads to large values of the Rabi splitting, reaching 35 meV for a single monolayer, and giant Zeeman splitting between polariton modes of up to 20 meV. This makes CrI3 an excellent platform for magnetopolaritonic applications.