Through a non-perturbative quantum theory, we investigate how the quasi-electron excitations of a two-dimensional electron gas are modified by strong coupling to the vacuum field of a microcavity. We show that the electronic dressed states originate from a Fano-like coupling between the bare electron states and the continuum of intersubband cavity polariton excitations. In particular, we calculate the electron spectral function modified by light-matter interactions and its impact on the electronic injection of intersubband cavity polaritons. The domain of validity of the present theoretical results is critically discussed. We show that resonant electron tunneling from a narrow-band injector can selectively excite superradiant states and produce efficient intersubband polariton electroluminescence.
Electric dipole transitions between different cavity polariton branches or between dressed atomic states with the same excitation number are strictly forbidden in centro-symmetric systems. For doped quantum wells in semiconductor microcavities, the strong coupling between an intersubband transition in the conduction band and a cavity mode produces two branches of intersubband cavity polaritons, whose normal-mode energy splitting is tunable and can be in the terahertz region. Here, we show that, by using asymmetric quantum wells, it is possible to have allowed dipolar transitions between differ…
We analyse the effect of a strong perpendicular magnetic field on an intersubband transition in a disordered doped quantum well strongly coupled to an optical cavity. The magnetic field changes the lineshape of the intersubband optical transition due to the interface roughness of the quantum well from a Lorentzian to a Gaussian one. In this regime, a novel form of magnetic-field-induced cavity protection sets in, which strongly reduces the polariton linewidth to the cavity contribution only. Implications of our results for fundamental studies of nonlinear polariton dynamics and for technologic…
We demonstrate room-temperature strong-coupling between a mid-infrared ($λ$=9.9 $μ$m) intersubband transition and the fundamental cavity mode of a metal-insulator-metal resonator. Patterning of the resonator surface enables surface-coupling of the radiation and introduces an energy dispersion which can be probed with angle-resolved reflectivity. In particular, the polaritonic dispersion presents an accessible energy minimum at k=0 where - potentially - polaritons can accumulate. We also show that it is possible to maximize the coupling of photons into the polaritonic states and - simultaneousl…
We present a microscopic theory describing the stimulated scattering of intersubband polariton excitations in a microcavity-embedded two-dimensional electron gas. In particular, we consider the polariton scattering induced by the spontaneous emission of optical phonons. Our theory demonstrates the possibility of final-state stimulation for the scattering of such composite excitations, accounting for the deviations from perfect bosonicity occurring at high excitation densities. By using realistic parameters for a GaAs semiconductor system, we predict how to achieve a quantum degenerate regime, …
Artifical superlattice (SL) potentials have been employed extensively for band structure engineering of two-dimensional (2D) Dirac electron gas in graphene. While such engineered electronic band structures can modify optical or plasmonic properties of graphene, an emergent polaritonic behavior beyond weak perturbative effects (e.g. anisotropic Drude weights) has not been reported. Here, we show that an extreme modulation of one-dimensional (1D) SL potentials in monolayer graphene deforms the underlying Dirac band dispersion and introduces ladder-like energy levels near the Fermi surface, which…
The strong coupling between an intersubband excitation in a quantum cascade structure and a photonic mode of a planar microcavity has been detected by angle-resolved photovoltaic measurements. A typical anticrossing behavior, with a vacuum-field Rabi splitting of 16 meV at 78K, has been measured, for an intersubband transition at 163 meV. These results show that the strong coupling regime between photons and intersubband excitations can be engineered in a quantum cascade opto-electronic device. They also demonstrate the possibility to perform angle-resolved mid-infrared photodetection and to d…
We study theoretically the entanglement of two-photon states in the ground state of the intersubband cavity system, the so-called polariton vacuum. The system consists of a sequence of doped quantum wells located inside a microcavity and the photons can interact with intersubband excitations inside the quantum wells. Using an explicit solution for the ground state of the system, operated in the ultrastrong coupling regime, a post-selection is introduced, where only certain two-photon states are considered and analyzed for mode entanglement. We find that a fast quench of the coupling creates en…
Tunneling density of states of both the massless and massive (gapped) particles in metallic carbon nanotubes is known to have anomalous energy dependence. This is the result of coupling to multiple low-energy bosonic excitation (plasmons). For both kinds of particles the ensuing effect is the suppression of the density of states by electron-electron interactions. We demonstrate that the optical absorption between gapless and gapped states is affected by the many-body effects in the opposite way. The absorption probability is enhanced compared with the non-interacting value and develops a power…
We present a quantum theoretical analysis of the electroluminescence from an intersubband transition of a quantum well structure embedded in a planar microcavity. By using a cluster factorization method, we have derived a closed set of dynamical equations for the quantum well carrier and cavity photon occupation numbers, the correlation between the cavity field and the intersubband polarization, as well as polarization-polarization contributions. In order to model the electrical excitation, we have considered electron population tunneling from an injector and into an extractor contact. The tun…
Considering two-level media in the array of weakly coupled nano-cavities, we reveal a variety of dynamical regimes, such as diffusion, self-trapping, soliton, and breathers for the wave-packets in the presence of photon tunneling processes between the next-nearest cavities. We focus our attention on the low branch (LB) bright polariton soliton formation, due to the two-body polariton-polariton scattering processes. When detuning frequency is manipulated adiabatically, the low-branch lattice polariton localized states, i.e., that are solitons and breathers evolving between photon-like and matte…
We have realised a semiconductor quantum structure that produces electroluminescence while operating in the light-matter strong coupling regime. The mid-infrared light emitting device is composed of a quantum cascade structure embedded in a planar microcavity, based on the GaAs/AlGaAs material system. At zero bias, the structure is characterised using reflectivity measurements which show, up to room temperature, a wide polariton anticrossing between an intersubband transition and the resonant cavity photon mode. Under electrical injection the spectral features of the emitted light change drast…
The strong-coupling regime between an electronic transition and the photonic mode of a optical resonator manifests itself in the lifting of the degeneracy between the two modes and the creation of two polariton states with mixed optical and electronic character. This phenomenon has been studied in atoms, excitons in semiconductors and quantum electrodynamics circuits based on Josephson junctions. Recently, there is also strong interest to study similar effects using intersubband transitions in quantum wells in the terahertz, where the ultra strong coupling regime can be reached and new physica…
I investigate the tunneling decay rate of a polaritonic system formed by a strong coupling between a vacuum cavity mode and $N$ metastable systems. Using a simple model potential, I find the instanton solutions controlling the low-temperature tunneling rate. The resulting rate modification due to the cavity is proportional to the mean of the second power of the light-matter coupling. No collective effect that would enhance the rates by a factor of $\sqrt{N}$ is present, which is in line with the results in the thermal activation regime.
We demonstrate Resonant Tunneling Diodes, embedded in double metal cavities, strongly coupled to the cavity field, while maintaining their electronic properties. We measure the polariton dispersion and find a relative vacuum Rabi splitting of 16%, which explicitly qualifies for the strong-coupling regime. Additionally we show that electronic transport has a significant influence on the polaritons by modulating the coupling strength. The merge between electronic transport and polaritonic physics in our devices opens up a new aspect of cavity quantum electro-dynamics and integrated photonics.
We develop in this work a simple qualitative quantum electron transport model, in the strong light-matter coupling regime under dipole approximation, able to capture polaritonic signatures in the time-dependent electrical current. The effect of the quantized electromagnetic field in the displacement current of a resonant tunneling diode inside an optical cavity is analyzed. The original peaks of the bare electron transmission coefficient split into two new peaks due to the resonant electron-photon interaction, leading to coherent Rabi oscillations among the polaritonic states that are develope…
In a microcavity, light-matter coupling is quantified by the vacuum Rabi frequency $Ω_R$. When $Ω_R$ is larger than radiative and non-radiative loss rates, the system eigenstates (polaritons) are linear superposition of photonic and electronic excitations, a condition actively investigated in diverse physical implementations. Recently, a quantum electrodynamic regime (ultra-strong coupling) was predicted when $Ω_R$ becomes comparable to the transition frequency. Here we report unambiguous signatures of this regime in a quantum-well intersubband microcavity. Measuring the cavity-polariton dispe…
The ability to feed energy into a system, or - equivalently - to drive that system with an external input is a fundamental aspect of light-matter interaction. The key concept in many photonic applications is the "critical coupling" condition: at criticality, all the energy fed to the system via an input channel is dissipated within the system itself. Although this idea was crucial to enhance the efficiency of many devices, it was never considered in the context of systems operating in a non-perturbative regime. In this so-called strong coupling regime, the matter and light degrees of freedom a…
We examine the eigenstates of the one-dimensional Jaynes-Cummings-Hubbard (JCH) model in the two-excitation subspace. We discover that two-excitation bound states emerge when the ratio of vacuum Rabi frequency to the tunneling rate between cavities exceeds a critical value. We determine the critical ratio as a function of the quasi-momentum quantum number, and indicate that the bound states carry a strong correlation in which the two polaritons appear to be spatially confined together.
In this theoretical work, we study a double quantum dot interacting strongly with a microcavity, while undergoing resonant tunneling. Effects of interdot tunneling on the light-matter hybridized states are determined, and tunability of their brightness degrees and associated dipole moments is demonstrated. These results predict dipolariton generation in artificial molecules coupled to optical resonators, and provide a promising scenario for control of emission efficiency and coherence times of exciton polaritons.
The electromagnetic field in an optical cavity can dramatically modify and even control chemical reactivity via vibrational strong coupling (VSC). Since the typical vibration and cavity frequencies are considerably higher than thermal energy, it is essential to adopt a quantum description of cavity-catalyzed adiabatic chemical reactions. Using quantum transition state theory (TST), we examine the coherent nature of adiabatic reactions and derive the cavity-induced changes in eigen frequencies, zero-point-energy, and quantum tunneling. The resulting quantum TST calculation allows us to explain …
We develop a fully quantum mechanical methodology to describe the static properties and the dynamics of a single anharmonic vibrational mode interacting with a quantized infrared cavity field in the strong and ultrastrong coupling regimes. By comparing multiconfiguration time-dependent Hartree (MCTDH) simulations for a Morse oscillator in a cavity, with an equivalent formulation of the problem in Hilbert space, we describe for the first time the essential role of permanent dipole moments in the femtosecond dynamics of vibrational polariton wavepackets. We show that depending on the shape of th…
It has been experimentally demonstrated that reaction rates for molecules embedded in microfluidic optical cavities are altered when compared to rates observed under "ordinary" reaction conditions. However, precise mechanisms of how strong coupling of an optical cavity mode to molecular vibrations affect the reactivity and how resonance behavior emerges are still under dispute. In the present work, we approach these mechanistic issues from the perspective of a thermal model reaction, the inversion of ammonia along the umbrella mode, in presence of a single cavity mode of varying frequency and …
We study theoretically the photon statistics of the field emitted from two optically coupled semiconductor microcavities each containing a quantum well. The emission is determined by the interplay between exciton-photon coupling in each quantum well and internal interaction between the two optically coupled microcavities. A high degree of coherent control and tunability via the quantum well-cavity coupling strength and photon tunneling over the photon statistics of the transmitted field can be achieved. We demonstrate that the optical property of radiation emitted by one quantum well can be co…
