Room-Temperature Topological Polariton Laser in an Organic Lattice

Abstract

Interacting bosonic particles in artificial lattices have proven to be a powerful tool for the investigation of exotic phases of matter as well as phenomena resulting from non-trivial topology. Exciton-polaritons, bosonic quasi-particles of light and matter, have shown to combine the on-chip benefits of optical systems with strong interactions, inherited form their matter character. Technologically significant semiconductor platforms, however, strictly require cryogenic temperatures for operability. In this paper, we demonstrate exciton-polariton lasing for topological defects emerging form the imprinted lattice structure at room temperature. We utilize a monomeric red fluorescent protein derived from DsRed of Discosoma sea anemones, hosting highly stable Frenkel excitons. Using a patterned mirror cavity, we tune the lattice potential landscape of a linear Su-Schrieffer-Heeger chain to design topological defects at domain boundaries and at the edge. In spectroscopic experiments, we unequivocally demonstrate polariton lasing from these topological defects. This progress promises to be a paradigm shift, paving the road to interacting Boson many-body physics at ambient conditions.

Exciton‐Polaritons and Their Bose–Einstein Condensates in Organic Semiconductor Microcavities

“…f–h) Reproduced with permission. [ 69 ] Copyright 2021, American Chemical Society. i) Schematic illustration of the laser patterning technique and the fabricated complete cavity.…”

“…These unique properties have attracted much attentions in the past decade. To date, room-temperature organic quasi-BEC [54] and many promising applications based on related quantum phenomena, including polariton lasing, [51][52][53][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62] polariton transistors and switches, [63] superfluidity, [64] and quantum simulations, [65][66][67][68][69][70] had been demonstrated in a broad range of material systems, as is summarized in Figure 8.…”

“…[ 61,62 ] These experimental progresses simultaneously resulted in the emergence of promising architectures as tunable coherent light sources, [ 52,57,60 ] all optical transistors and switches, [ 63 ] polariton superfluid, [ 64 ] and future quantum simulations. [ 65–70 ] However, the development of organic exciton‐polaritons and their condensates is still in its infancy as it needs to combine the expertise from, at least, three different subjects: chemistry, quantum optics, and nanophotonics. More theoretical and experimental studies are required in many aspects, for example, understanding the mechanism of how photophysical and photochemical processes are modified by polaritons, exploiting novel organic polariton condensation systems to achieve a true BEC with thermal equilibrium, [ 71 ] and investigating roles including stokes shifts as well as disorder acting in reducing condensation thresholds toward unborn peculiarly intriguing organic electrically driven polariton condensates.…”

“…[61,62] These experimental progresses simultaneously resulted in the emergence of promising architectures as tunable coherent light sources, [52,57,60] all optical transistors and switches, [63] polariton superfluid, [64] and future quantum simulations. [65][66][67][68][69][70] However, the development of organic exciton-polaritons and their condensates is still in its infancy as it needs to combine the expertise from, at least, three different subjects: chemistry, quantum optics, and nanophotonics. More theoretical and experimental studies are required in many aspects, for example, understanding the mechanism of how photophysical and Exciton-polaritons are half-light, half-matter bosonic quasiparticles formed by strong exciton-photon coupling in semiconductor microcavities.…”

Thermalization of Fluorescent Protein Exciton–Polaritons at Room Temperature

“…Organic exciton-polaritons are hybrid quasiparticles, resulting from the strong or ultrastrong coupling between electronic excitations of a molecule and resonant photonic modes in a cavity. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] The huge binding energy and oscillator strength of Frenkel excitons in organic molecules can lead to large vacuum Rabi split-In contrast to mCherry, which was previously used to realize lattice polariton condensates, [14,22,24] the protein mScarlet is a highly monomeric, β-barrel structure-based RFP with a record 3.5-times higher oscillator strength than mCherry. [46] The organic protein possess a fluorescence lifetime of ≈3.9 ns with a quantum yield of ≈70% in solid-state.…”