Demonstration of a polariton step potential by local variation of light-matter coupling in a van-der-Waals heterostructure

C. Rupprecht, M. Klaas, H. Knopf, T. Taniguchi, K. Watanabe, Y. Qin, S. Tongay, S. Schr der, F. Eilenberger, S. H fling, C. Schneider

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

The large oscillator strength of excitons in transition metal dichalcogenide layers facilitates the formation of exciton-polariton resonances for monolayers and van-der-Waals heterostructures embedded in optical microcavities. Here, we show, that locally changing the number of layers in a WSe2/hBN/WSe2 van-der-Waals heterostructure embedded in a monolithic, high-quality-factor cavity gives rise to a local variation of the coupling strength. This effect yields a polaritonic stair case potential, which we demonstrate at room temperature. Our result paves the way towards engineering local polaritonic potentials at length scales down to atomically sharp interfaces, based on purely modifying its real part contribution via the coherent light-matter coupling strength g. 2020 Optical Society of America.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)18649-18657
Number of pages9
JournalOptics Express
Volume28
Issue number13
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 22 2020

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

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