Hybridized polaritons are generated by simultaneously coupling two vibrational modes of two different organic materials to the resonance of a low-loss infrared optical microcavity. A thin film of poly methyl methacrylate with solvent molecules of dimethylformamide trapped inside provided two spectrally narrow, closely spaced carbonyl stretches with absorption peaks at 1731 and 1678 cm(-1). Situating this film in a microcavity based on Ge/ZnS distributed Bragg reflector mirrors produced three distinct polariton branches in the dispersion relation due to hybridization of the vibrational resonances. Two anticrossings were observed with Rabi splittings of 9.6 and 5.2 meV, between the upper-to-middle and middle-to-lower polariton branches, respectively. This system marks the first demonstration of polariton hybridization between a solid and solvent molecules and can open new paths toward chemical reaction modification and energy transfer studies in the mid-infrared spectral range.

Carbon nanotubes exhibit mechanical properties ideally suited for reinforced structural composites and surface area and conductivity attractive for electrochemical capacitors. Here we demonstrate the multifunctional synergy between these properties in a composite material exhibiting simultaneous mechanical and energy storage properties. This involves a reinforcing electrode developed using dense, aligned carbon nanotubes grown on stainless steel mesh that is layered in an ion conducting epoxy electrolyte matrix with Kevlar or fiberglass mats. The resulting energy storage composites exhibit elastic modulus over 5 GPa, mechanical strength greater than 85 MPa, and energy density up to 3 mWh/kg for the total combined system including electrodes, current collector, Kevlar or fiberglass, and electrolyte matrix. Furthermore, findings from in-situ mechano-electro-chemical tests indicate simultaneous mechanical and electrochemical functionality with invariant and stable supercapacitor performance maintained throughout the elastic regime.

Microcavity devices exhibiting strong light-matter coupling in the mid-infrared spectral range offer the potential to explore exciting open physical questions pertaining to energy transfer between heat and light and can lead to a new generation of efficient wavelength tunable midinfrared sources of coherent light based on polariton BoseEinstein Condensation. Vibrational transitions of organic molecules, which often have strong absorption peaks in the infrared and considerably narrower linewidths than organic excitonic resonances, can generate polaritonic states in the mid-infrared spectral range using microcavity devices. Here, narrow linewidth polaritonic resonances are exhibited in the mid-infrared by coupling the carbonyl stretch vibrational transition of a polymethyl methacrylate film to the photonic resonance of a low optical-loss mid-infrared microcavity, which consisted of two Ge/ZnS dielectric Bragg reflectors. Rabi-splitting of 14.3 meV is observed, with a 4.4 meV polariton linewidth at anti-crossing. The large Rabi-splitting relative to linewidth indicates efficient impedance-matching between the bare vibrational and photonic states, and suggests molecular-vibration polaritons incorporated in dielectric microcavities can be an enabling step towards realizing polariton optical switching and polariton condensation in the mid-infrared spectral range.

We describe the design, fabrication, and characterization of mechanically stable, reproducible, and highly reflecting distributed Bragg reflectors (DBR) composed of thermally evaporated thin films of calcium fluoride (CaF2) and zinc sulfide (ZnS). CaF2 and ZnS were chosen as the low and high refractive index components of the multilayer DBR structures, with n = 1.43 and n = 2.38 respectively, because neither material requires substrate heating during the deposition process in order to produce optical quality thin films. DBRs consisting of seven pairs of CaF2 and ZnS layers, were fabricated with thicknesses of 96 and 58 nm, respectively, as characterized by high-resolution scanning electron microscopy (HR-SEM), and exhibited a center wavelength of λc = 550 nm and peak reflectance exceeding 99%. The layers showed good adhesion to each other and to the glass substrate, resulting in mechanically stable DBR coatings. Complete optical microcavities consisting of two such DBR coatings and a CaF2 spacer layer between them could be fabricated in a single deposition run. Optically, these structures exhibited a resonator quality factor of Q > 160. When a CaF2/ZnS DBR was grown, without heating the substrate during deposition, on top of a thin film containing the fluorescent dye Rhodamine 6G, the fluorescence intensity showed no degradation compared to an uncoated film, in contrast to a MgF2/ZnS DBR coating grown with substrate heating which showed a 92% reduction in signal. The ability to fabricate optical quality CaF2/ZnS DBRs without substrate heating, as introduced here, can therefore enable formation of low-loss high-reflectivity coatings on top of more delicate heat-sensitive materials such as organics and other nanostructured emitters, and hence facilitate the development of nanoemitter-based microcavity device applications.

The magnetotransport properties were studied in hundreds of micrometer length double-wall carbon nanotubes (DWCNT) bundles. Above 15 K the resistance shows an ohmic behavior and its temperature dependence is well described using the variable-range hopping for one-dimensional system. The magnetoresistance is negative and can be explained using an empirical model based on spin-scattering processes indicating the existence of magnetic order up to room temperature. At temperatures between 2 K and 15 K the resistance is non-ohmic and the current-voltage characteristics reveal the appearance of a potential, which can be well described by a fluctuation-induced tunneling conduction model. In this low temperature range and at low enough input current, a positive magnetoresistance appears -in addition to the negative one -with an extraordinary hysteresis in field and vanishes at T ∼ 15 K, suggesting the existence of a superconducting state. Magnetization results partially support the existence of both phenomena in the DWCNT bundles.