Hybrid Polaritonics

杂化极化电子学结合了不同发光材料（有机聚合物和半导体）的特性，以产生结合两种系统可能性的准粒子。“极化子”是由光和物质之间的强耦合产生的准粒子。这意味着它们具有混合特性，结合了光的移动性和灵活性，以及由于物质成分而产生的相互作用的可能性。在足够高的密度或足够低的温度下，极化子可以形成宏观的相干量子态、极化子凝聚体或极化子激光。这种相干态与玻色-爱因斯坦凝聚（Bose - Einstein Condensation）的物理性质基本相同，正如在冷原子中所看到的那样，但不需要原子所需的超低温。混合极化电子学关注的是如何通过结合极化子的不同“物质”部分，将这些温度提高到更高，甚至达到室温，以及如何设计完全可调的系统。极化子的物质部分可以来自任何能够吸收和发射特定波长的光的物质。许多现有的关于极化的工作是基于无机半导体的材料。它们的生长是可以控制的，人们可以通过给它们通电来驱动这种装置，从而制造出极化激子激光器。然而，半导体中物质与光之间的耦合还不够强，无法让这些设备在室温下工作。相比之下，有机分子和聚合物可以表现出巨大的耦合强度，但通常是不良的导电体。我们的计划是结合两种系统的优点，提供一套完整的设备，在室温下工作，基于极化的形成。这些设备的范围将从极化子激光器（提供一种具有极低阈值电流的易于调谐的激光器）到太赫兹光源（应用于非侵入性医学成像和爆炸物检测），再到超高效发光二极管。为了实现这些雄心勃勃的目标，我们需要结合各个领域的专业知识。我们的团队包括发光聚合物、半导体生长、极化子表征和光谱以及理论建模方面的世界专家。我们的团队成员之前已经首次实现了极化激子激光，与有机材料的强耦合，以及构建混合极化激子激光器。结合这些专业知识的可能性借鉴了英国目前在这一领域的独特优势，并使这些专业知识的结合能够专注于提供基于混合极化电子学的室温设备，并彻底改变这一领域。

Hybrid polaritonics combines the properties of different light emitting materials - organic polymers and semiconductors - in order to produce quasiparticles that combine the possibilities of both systems. "Polaritons" are quasi-particles that arise from strong coupling between light and matter. This means that they have hybrid properties, combining the mobility and flexibility of light, with the possibilities of interactions due to the matter component. At high enough densities, or low enough temperatures, polaritons can form a macroscopic coherent quantum state, a polariton condensate, or a polariton laser. Such a coherent state shows much of the same physics as Bose Einstein Condensation, as has been seen for cold atoms, but without requiring the ultra-low tempeatures required for atoms.Hybid polaritonics focuses on how, by combining different "matter" parts of the polariton, one can push these temperatures even higher, up to room temperature, and how one can engineer completely tunable system. The matter part of a polariton can come from any material which will absorb and emit light at a specific wavelength. Much existing work on polaritons is based on the material being inorganic semiconductors. These can be grown controllably, and one can drive such devices by passing an electrical current through them to make a polariton laser. However, the coupling between matter and light in semiconductors is not strong enough for these devices to work at room temperature. In contrast, organic molecules and polymers can show huge coupling strengths, but are generally poor electrical conductors. Our programme is to combine the benefits of both systems to provide a whole set of devices, operating at room temperature, based on the formation of polaritons. These devices will range from polariton lasers (providing a route to easily tunable lasers with very low threshold currents), to Terrahertz light sources (with applications in non-invasive medical imaging and explosives detection), to ultra-efficient light emitting diodes. To reach these ambitious objectives, we need to combine expertise from a wide number of fields. Our team contains world experts in light emitting polymers, semiconductor growth, characterisation and spectroscopy of polaritons, and in theoretical modelling. Members of our team have previously achieved the first realisations of polariton lasing, of strong coupling with organic materials, and of building hybrid polariton lasers. The possibility to combine this expertise draws on the unique strengths that the UK currently has in this area, and enables the combination of this expertise to be focussed on providing room temperature devices based on hybrid polaritonics, and to revolutionise this field.