Hyperspectral Imaging of Exciton Polaritons in Optical Microcavities

Abstract

Photons can be confined in optical microcavities both spectrally and spatially, which allows us to study the light-matter interaction in both weak and strong coupling regimes. While the former is identified by the Purcell factor, which quantifies the suppression or enhancement of the spontaneous emission rate of the quantum emitters coupled to the cavity modes, the latter is identified by the formation of hybrid photon-matter modes called exciton polaritons and thus represents an avoided crossing in the spectra. Until now, various imaging and spectroscopic techniques have been extensively used to study exciton polariton formation in optical microcavities, and the coupling between excitons and photons has been statically and dynamically tuned. Herein, we demonstrate the hyperspectral imaging of exciton polaritons in optical microcavities. Two thin metal films acting as reflectors and a polymer matrix containing a collection of quantum emitters form a hybrid system for polariton imaging. We show a strong exciton-photon interaction between photons confined in the microcavity and Frenkel excitons of dye molecules placed inside the optical microcavity. We find that exciton polaritons can be imaged and spatially mapped in the optical microcavity by using hyperspectral imaging in the visible region. We envision that our findings will help us to understand exciton polariton formation in the spectral and spatial domains at the same time across different coupling regimes.