Polaritonics using two-dimensional atomic crystals

标题：基于二维晶体半导体中半光半物质准粒子（微腔极化子）的超快开关架构光子学领域通过在电信、显示技术、医学、传感、娱乐、替代能源系统和量子信息学等半未来技术中的应用，对我们的生活产生了巨大的影响。在这些应用中使用的下一代光子系统和子系统将需要以超快速率（Tbps）运行，并且应该能够在很少的光子水平上执行全光数据路由和处理。在这种情况下，努力主要是为了实现纯光子开关架构，以取代其电子对应物，导致更大的功率需求和更大的占地面积。这个问题在这里通过利用最好的电子学和光子学的混合系统来解决。具体来说，开关架构将依赖于在二维晶体半导体中实现的称为微腔极化子的半轻半物质准粒子。它们有望成为实现低能量、超快、宽带、开关和门的理想平台，用于经典和量子水平的信号处理以及图像处理。这项研究也将有助于在纳米尺度上对光-物质相互作用的基本理解。这项工作将为来自不同社会经济背景和代表性不足社区的研究生、本科生和高中生提供独特的跨学科科学教育，涵盖光学、材料科学和凝聚态物理等新兴领域。技术：利用光子和物质的优势，该研究计划将研究光-物质准粒子（微腔极化子）作为超快低能量开关和信号处理的平台。具体而言，将利用过渡金属二硫族化合物的二维激子与腔光子之间的强耦合形成的微腔极化子。结合二维材料的谷自由度和自旋自由度等新的物理特性，将开发出在室温下同时进行强度和极化开关的微腔极化开关。此外，这些开关将被集成以演示逻辑门操作。傅里叶空间光谱和泵浦探针技术将用于表征非线性极化子发射和开关动力学。室温极化开关和逻辑元件的发展代表了传统的基于光子或电子的信号处理系统的重大突破和进步。

Title: Ultrafast switching architectures based on half-light half-matter quasiparticles (microcavity polaritons) in two-dimensional crystalline semiconductorsThe field of photonics has had tremendous impact on our lives through applications in telecommunication, display technology, medicine, sensing, entertainment, alternative energy systems and in semi-futuristic technologies such as quantum informatics. The next generation photonic systems and subsystems used in these applications will need to operate at ultrafast rates (Tbps) and should be capable of performing all-optical data routing and processing even at few photon levels. In this context, effort has mostly been directed towards realizing purely photonic switching architectures to replace their electronic counterparts resulting in larger power requirement and bigger footprint. This issue is addressed here by exploiting hybrid systems that take the best of electronics and photonics. Specifically, the switching architectures will rely on half-light half-matter quasiparticles called microcavity polaritons realized in two-dimensional crystalline semiconductors. They are expected to be an ideal platform to realize low energy, ultrafast, wide bandwidth, switches and gates for signal processing at classical and quantum levels, and image processing. The study will also contribute to fundamental understanding of light-matter interaction at the nanoscale. This work will provide unique inter-disciplinary scientific education in an emerging field encompassing optics, materials science and condensed matter physics to graduate, undergraduate and high school students from diverse socio-economic backgrounds and under-represented communities. Technical: Exploiting the benefit of both photons and matter, this research program will investigate light-matter quasiparticles (microcavity polaritons) as a platform for ultrafast low energy switching and signal processing. Specifically, microcavity polaritons formed by the strong coupling between the two-dimensional excitons of transition metal dichalcogenides and cavity photons will be utilized. By combining the novel physical properties of the two-dimensional materials such as valley and spin degrees of freedom, microcavity polariton switches that perform both intensity and polarization switching at room temperature will be developed. In addition, these switches will be integrated to demonstrate logic gate operations. Fourier space spectroscopy and pump-probe techniques will be used to characterize the nonlinear polariton emission and the switching dynamics. The development of room temperature polaritonic switching and logic elements represents a significant departure and advancement from traditional photon based or electron based signal processing systems.