Microcavity phonon polaritons from weak to ultrastrong phonon-photon coupling

Abstract

Strong coupling between molecular vibrations and microcavity modes has been demonstrated to modify physical and chemical properties of the molecular material. Here, we study the much less explored coupling between lattice vibrations (phonons) and microcavity modes. Embedding thin layers of hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) into classical microcavities, we demonstrate the evolution from weak to ultrastrong phonon-photon coupling when the hBN thickness is increased from a few nanometers to a fully filled cavity. Remarkably, strong coupling is achieved for hBN layers as thin as 10 nm. Further, the ultrastrong coupling in fully filled cavities yields a cavity polariton dispersion matching that of phonon polaritons in bulk hBN, highlighting that the maximum light-matter coupling in microcavities is limited to the coupling strength between photons and the bulk material. The tunable cavity phonon polaritons could become a versatile platform for studying how the coupling strength between photons and phonons may modify the properties of polar crystals.

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• Directional strong coupling at the nanoscale between hyperbolic polaritons and organic molecules
• Photon and phonon statistics in a qubit-plasmon-phonon ultrastrong coupling system
• Description of ultrastrong light-matter interaction through coupled harmonic oscillator models and their connection with cavity-QED Hamiltonians
• Quantum Electrodynamics of graphene Landau levels in a deep-subwavelength hyperbolic phonon polariton cavity
• Manipulating terahertz phonon-polariton in the ultrastrong coupling regime with bound states in the continuum
• Polaritonic Ultrastrong Coupling: Quantum Entanglement in Ground State
• Purcell effect in chiral environments
• Prospects to bypass nonlocal phenomena in metals using phonon-polaritons
• Release of virtual photon and phonon pairs from qubit-plasmon-phonon ultrastrong coupling system
• Quantum entanglement and Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering in ultrastrongly light-matter coupled system
• Two-Polariton Blockade via Ultrastrong Light-Matter Coupling
• Exactly Solvable Phase Transition in a Cavity-Coupled 1D Ising Chain
• Spontaneous Raman Scattering under Vibrational Strong Coupling: The Critical Role of Polariton Spatial Mode Coherence