Hybrid architectures for terahertz molecular polaritonics.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 38789427.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-024-48764-6 and PMC identifier 11126624.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Atoms and their different arrangements into molecules are nature's building blocks. In a regime of strong coupling, matter hybridizes with light to modify physical and chemical properties, hence creating new building blocks that can be used for avant-garde technologies. However, this regime relies on the strong confinement of the optical field, which is technically challenging to achieve, especially at terahertz frequencies in the far-infrared region. Here we demonstrate several schemes of electromagnetic field confinement aimed at facilitating the collective coupling of a localized terahertz photonic mode to molecular vibrations. We observe an enhanced vacuum Rabi splitting of 200 GHz from a hybrid cavity architecture consisting of a plasmonic metasurface, coupled to glucose, and interfaced with a planar mirror. This enhanced light-matter interaction is found to emerge from the modified intracavity field of the cavity, leading to an enhanced zero-point electric field amplitude. Our study provides key insight into the design of polaritonic platforms with organic molecules to harvest the unique properties of hybrid light-matter states.