Exploring Light–Matter Interaction Phenomena under Ultrastrong Coupling Regime

Abstract

Exciton-polaritons are bosonic quasiparticles that arise from the normal mode splitting of photons in a microcavity and excitons in a semiconductor material. One of the most intriguing extensions of such a light–matter interaction is the so-called ultrastrong coupling regime. It is achieved when the Rabi frequency (Ω R, the energy exchange rate between the emitter and the resonant photonic mode) reaches a considerable fraction of the emitter transition frequency, ω 0 . Here, we report a Rabi energy splitting (2ℏΩ R ) of 1.12 eV and record values of the coupling ratio (2Ω R /ω 0 ) up to 0.6-fold the material band gap in organic semiconductor microcavities and up to 0.5-fold in monolithic heterostructure organic light-emitting diodes working at room temperature. Furthermore, we show that with such a large coupling strength it is possible to undress the exciton homogeneous linewidth from its inhomogeneous broadening, which allows for an unprecedented narrow emission line (below the cavity finesse) for such organic LEDs. The latter can be exploited for the realization of novel monochromatic sources and near-IR organic emitting devices.