Guided Bloch surface wave polaritons

Abstract

The authors report on a theoretical investigation of guided polariton states arising from the strong coupling between quantum-well excitons and a Bloch surface wave confined at the interface between a uniform dielectric medium and a Bragg mirror. It is shown that the exciton–photon coupling is almost doubled as compared to a similar structure made in a conventional planar microcavity. It is also shown that, by simple engineering of the sample surface with silicon oxide deposition, one can efficiently produce one-dimensional polaritons propagating within the structure with extremely low losses. The latter result evidences the usefulness of Bloch surface waves as a key component for the realization of “polaritonic integrated circuits.”

Room temperature Bloch surface wave polaritons

“…Recently, it has been suggested that similar phenomena could also be observed at the interface between a single Bragg mirror (DBR) and a homogeneous medium by exploiting strong light-matter coupling to Bloch surface waves. [10,11] Such Bloch surface wave polaritons (BSWP), [12] i.e. mixed excitations bound to the surface of the Bragg mirror,-which exploit the confinement of the optical mode due to total internal reflection as weel as a photonic bandgap-could be exploited for prospective polariton devices with high efficiency and controlled long range propagation, or for applications requiring high surface sensitivity such as optical sensors, [13,14] with clear advantages over alternative structures where metal deposition is required.…”

Guided modes in photonic crystals ridges

“…To date, several configurations supporting propagating modes confined in two dimensions have been suggested or demon-strated: optical fibers [3], ridge waveguides [4], PhC fibers [5], PhC waveguides [6], truncated PhC slabs [7], PhC wires [8], and PhC ridges [9,10]. Some of these configurations are shown in Fig.…”

“…In these structures, guided modes are characterized by asymmetric light confinement, which relies on a PBG only from the multilayer side and on TIR in all the other directions. These systems are not only appealing as platforms for optical sensors, but also for the study of the lightmatter interaction at the fundamental level, such as in the strong-coupling regime of quantum-well excitons [10]. One of the most interesting features of PhC ridges is that a guided mode can result even with ridges as thin as a few tens of nanometers [9].…”

Bloch Surface Waves for MoS2 Emission Coupling and Polariton Systems

“…A first theoretical proposal in 2011 [40], predicted the generation of BSWP using GaAs quantum wells deposited on top of a DBR. The first experimental demonstration of the formation of a BSWP was simultaneously obtained in 2014 from two different research teams [38,41].…”