Engineering Room-Temperature Exciton-Polgritonics

随着社会对技术的依赖增加，对快速和安全的信息传输和日益复杂的计算能力的需求继续增长。为了开发多功能系统来满足这些迫切的需求，研究人员正在致力于创造节能的紧凑型光子和光电子器件，这些器件由材料和纳米结构中的新物理过程控制。通过拟议的计划，我们将把激子-极化电子器件设计成一个可扩展的固态光子平台。激子-极化激子具有双重的光-物质性质，这是由于它们的腔光子和量子井激子的强耦合造成的。物质部分赋予粒子-粒子相互作用产生的强非线性和自发相干性，而波动部分赋予极轻质量产生的超快传播。这些特性使我们能够构建超低功率光源和光学逻辑器件，与传统器件相比，预计功率增益将达到10-100倍。固有的平面结构支持集成其他组件以实现可伸缩性。我们的目标是开发室温(RT)激子-极化电子学，提供低功耗、小物理足迹、原始的单模质量和更高的输出功率；这些固有特征源于量子玻色性质。RT操作消除了对昂贵的低温设备的需要，构建极高密度的集成系统所需的低功率操作，以及增加的输出功率使级联和并行过程能够达到更高的计算复杂性水平。我们的方法将是研究过渡金属二卤代化合物作为RT操作的新候选材料，因为这类激子对RT热能是稳定的，因为它具有巨大的激子结合能。我们将设计和制造合适的微腔，将这些新材料嵌入其中，形成稳定的RT激子-偏振子。通过该计划实现这些器件的成功演示，将推动光通信和数据存储、光电子学以及基于偏振子的光源、开关晶体管和传感器的集成光子电路的发展。我们的装置还将用作研究奇异量子相的试验台，如玻色-爱因斯坦凝聚、超流和RT下的涡旋形成。拟议研究的工程学和探索性方面将提供一个特殊的教育平台，通过这个平台，HQP将内化对基础物理的全面理解，并获得最先进的光学和电子技术。这将使他们做好充分的准备，在量子光学计算和通信等对加拿大经济将变得越来越重要的行业中脱颖而出。

The demand for the rapid and secure transfer of information and for increasingly complex computational power continues to grow as society's reliance on technology increases. To develop multi-functional systems to meet these pressing demands, researchers are pursuing the creation of energy-efficient compact photonic and optoelectronic devices governed by novel physical processes in materials and nanostructures. Through the proposed program, we will engineer exciton-polaritonic devices as a scalable solid-state photonic platform. Exciton-polaritons have a dual light-matter nature, resulting from their strongly coupled cavity photons and quantum-well excitons. The matter portion bestows strong nonlinearity and spontaneous coherence arising from particle-particle interactions, and the wave portion bestows ultrafast propagation arising from its extremely light mass. These properties enable us to build ultralow power light sources and optical logic devices, with a predicted 10-100 fold power gain compared to traditional devices. The innate planar structure supports integration of other components for scalability.We aim to develop room-temperature (RT) exciton-polaritonics that offer low power consumption, small physical footprint, pristine single-mode quality and increased output power; inherent features that arise from the quantum Bose nature. RT operation eliminates the need for expensive cryogenic equipment, low power operation is required for building extremely dense integrated systems, and increased output power enables cascade and parallel processes for reaching expanded levels of computational complexity. Our approach will be to investigate transition-metal dichalcogenides as a new material candidate for RT operation because excitons in this class are stable against RT thermal energy due to a huge exciton-binding energy. We will design and fabricate suitable microcavities, in which these new materials will be embedded to form stable RT exciton-polaritons.The successful demonstration of these devices, realized through this program, will advance progress in optical communication and data storage, optoelectronics, and integrated photonic circuits with polariton-based light emitting sources, switching transistors, and sensors. Our devices will also serve as a testbed to study exotic quantum phases such as Bose-Einstein condensation, superfluidity and vortex formation at RT. Engineering and explorative aspects of the proposed research will furnish an exceptional educational platform, through which HQP will internalize comprehensive understanding of fundamental physics and acquire state-of-the-art optical and electrical techniques. This will leave them well equipped to excel as leaders in sectors that will become increasingly important to Canada's economy, such as quantum optical computation and communications.