Remote control of excitonic materials using coupled optical cavities

Instituto de Física, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Apartado Postal 20-364, Ciudad de México, C.P., 01000, Mexico

^* Corresponding author: pirruccio@fisica.unam.mx

Published online: 31 October 2024

Abstract

Strong coupling with light has emerged as a powerful tool for modifying the properties of optical materials. Typical systems are based on a fluorescent layer embedded in a single optical cavity, whereby the excitonic emission is converted into a polarized, energy-tunable and dispersive polariton emission. There, excitons and photons coexist in the same volume and therefore any change in the emission properties of the excitonic material comes at the expense of simultaneously modifying the photonic environment where excitons reside, i.e., layer thickness and refractive index. Here, we demonstrate remote control over the intensity and total decay rate of the fluorescent layer by adding an extra purely photonic cavity strongly coupled to the first one. By modifying the resonant condition of the extra cavity, we reduce the total decay rate and suppress the fluorescence intensity of the fluorescent layer without explicitly affecting the first cavity. Such modification of the optical properties of the layer is the consequence of a resonant configuration that spatially segregates photons and excitons into different cavities.