We report quantum well mid-infrared photo-detectors operating in the strong light-matter coupling regime. We claim that this is an ideal system to elucidate the elusive problem in intersubband polaritonics of the injection of electrons (single-particle fermionic states) into polaritonic modes (bosonic excitations). By reversing the perspective and focusing on the electron extraction, we have obtained experimental information on the transfer function between a polaritonic system and an electronic reservoir. In addition to its interest for fundamental science, this approach also opens promising avenues in view of adding previously unavailable functionalities to quantum well detectors and improving their performance.

We demonstrate that intersubband (ISB) polaritons are robust to inhomogeneous effects originating from the presence of multiple quantum wells (MQWs). In a series of samples that exhibit mid-infrared ISB absorption transitions with broadenings varying by a factor of 5 (from 4 meV to 20meV), we have observed polariton linewidths always lying in the 4 - 7 meV range only. We have experimentally verified the dominantly inhomogeneous origin of the broadening of the ISB transition, and that the linewidth reduction effect of the polariton modes persists up to room-temperature. This immunity to inhomogeneous broadening is a direct consequence of the coupling of the large number of ISB oscillators to a single photonic mode. It is a precious tool to gauge the natural linewidth of the ISB plasmon , that is otherwise masked in such MQWs system , and is also beneficial in view of perspective applications such as intersubband polariton lasers