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Strong light–matter coupling in two-dimensional atomic crystals

Nature Photonics volume 9, pages 30–34 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

Two-dimensional atomic crystals of graphene, as well as transition-metal dichalcogenides, have emerged as a class of materials that demonstrate strong interaction with light. This interaction can be further controlled by embedding such materials into optical microcavities. When the interaction rate is engineered to be faster than dissipation from the light and matter entities, one reaches the ‘strong coupling’ regime. This results in the formation of half-light, half-matter bosonic quasiparticles called microcavity polaritons. Here, we report evidence of strong light–matter coupling and the formation of microcavity polaritons in a two-dimensional atomic crystal of molybdenum disulphide (MoS2) embedded inside a dielectric microcavity at room temperature. A Rabi splitting of 46 ± 3 meV is observed in angle-resolved reflectivity and photoluminescence spectra due to coupling between the two-dimensional excitons and the cavity photons. Realizing strong coupling at room temperature in two-dimensional materials that offer a disorder-free potential landscape provides an attractive route for the development of practical polaritonic devices.

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Figure 1: Structure and optical properties of the CVD-grown MoS2 microcavity.
Figure 2: Angle-resolved reflectivity spectra of the microcavity.
Figure 3: Dispersion of microcavity polaritons.
Figure 4: Angle-resolved photoluminescence spectra of the microcavity.

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Acknowledgements

X.L., T.G., Z.S. and V.M. acknowledge support from the Army Research Office (grant no. W911NF1310001) and the National Science Foundation MRSEC programme (grant no. DMR 1120923). F.X. acknowledges support from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. Y.H.L. and E.C.L. acknowledge support from the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Republic of China (103-2112-M-007-001-MY3). S.K.C. acknowledges support from the NSERC Discovery grant programme.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, City College of New York, New York, 10031, New York, USA

    Xiaoze Liu, Tal Galfsky, Zheng Sun & Vinod M. Menon

  2. Department of Physics, Queens College & Graduate Centre, City University of New York, New York, 11367, New York, USA

    Xiaoze Liu, Tal Galfsky, Zheng Sun & Vinod M. Menon

  3. Department of Electrical Engineering, PO Box 208267, Yale University, New Haven, 06520, Connecticut, USA

    Fengnian Xia

  4. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan

    Erh-chen Lin & Yi-Hsien Lee

  5. Department of Engineering Physics, École Polytechnique de Montréal, Montréal, Quebec, Canada

    Stéphane Kéna-Cohen

Authors
  1. Xiaoze Liu
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  2. Tal Galfsky
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  4. Fengnian Xia
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  7. Stéphane Kéna-Cohen
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  8. Vinod M. Menon
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Contributions

V.M. and F.X. initiated the project. X.L., V.M. and F.X. designed the experiments. X.L. fabricated the microcavity samples. X.L. and Z.S. collected the data and X.L., S.K.C. and V.M. analysed it. E.C.L. and Y.H.L. grew the CVD monolayer MoS2. X.L. and T.G. performed the theoretical modelling. All authors contributed to the discussion of the results and writing the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Vinod M. Menon.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Liu, X., Galfsky, T., Sun, Z. et al. Strong light–matter coupling in two-dimensional atomic crystals. Nature Photon 9, 30–34 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2014.304

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