Giant optomechanical coupling and dephasing protection with cavity exciton-polaritons

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that exciton-polaritons in semiconductor microcavities enable GHz optomechanics with record coupling strengths, while being protected from dephasing by the Rabi gap, opening new avenues for quantum optomechanics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel platform using exciton-polaritons for enhanced and protected optomechanical interactions in semiconductor microcavities.

Findings

Achieved record single-particle optomechanical coupling in the 10s of MHz.

Demonstrated protection from inhomogeneous broadening via the Rabi gap.

Enabled access to single-polariton nonlinearities and strong coupling regime.

Abstract

Electronic resonances can significantly enhance the photon-phonon coupling in cavity optomechanics, but are normally avoided due to absorption losses and dephasing by inhomogeneous broadening. We experimentally demonstrate that exciton-polaritons in semiconductor microcavities enable GHz optomechanics with single-particle resonant couplings reaching record values in the 10s of MHz range. Moreover, this resonant enhancement is protected from inhomogeneous broadening by the Rabi gap. Single-polariton non-linearities and the optomechanical strong-coupling regime become accessible in this platform.