Strong light-matter coupling with sugar-coated metamaterials
An international team of scientists has developed a method for confining light inside an organic material. The researchers from the joint Max Planck-University of Ottawa Centre for Extreme and Quantum Photonics and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light have designed a device which can efficiently modify the properties of materials using quantum superposition with light. These results, recently published in Nature Communications, bring researchers closer to being technologically able to utilize some of the unique properties of quantum systems in a hybrid state of both light and matter and could contribute to the development of future technologies in medical applications.
Schematic of a hybrid cavity architecture to achieve efficient light-matter coupling. (@ Alexandra Genes, Genes Design).
The collaborative team of the experimental group “Ultrafast Terahertz Spectroscopy”, led by Prof. Jean-Michel Ménard at the University of Ottawa (Canada) and the theory group “Cooperative Quantum Phenomena”, led by Dr. Claudiu Genes, at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (Germany) designed a two-dimensional mirror patterned with very thin metallic elements, known as a metasurface. This metasurface interacts efficiently with light in a defined frequency window. A thin layer of sugar was deposited on the metasurface, which strongly coupled to it. When light in the far infrared range - at terahertz frequencies (THz) – is trapped in an organic material, it couples with other molecules resulting in modified properties. In their experimental approach, the researchers use this light-matter interaction to generate a unique quantum state. Such a state is neither fully confined to the material, nor to the purely massless photon field. More specifically, THz light can directly address and modify vibrations of the molecular nuclei. The ability to control nuclear vibrations in turn opens up the possibility of steering physical and chemical properties of such molecules.
The researchers, in an effort led by PhD candidate Ahmed Jaber from the University of Ottawa, have developed an innovative compound platform within which light becomes doubly trapped and remains tightly confined within it. The robust plug-and-play platform delivers a design of patterned metallic metasurfaces combined with a photonic cavity. It potentially allows many organic materials to be analyzed and to produce quantum systems with new properties. A precise alignment of the device is not required to trap the light as this critical condition is mostly fulfilled by the geometry of the metasurface’s metallic pattern. This fundamental research of the design to investigate strong light-matter coupling could be used in practice to modify the vibrational bonds of molecules and potentially affect the rate of chemical reactions. This work is demonstrated using sugar, which is a vital building block in the life sciences and plays an important role for in biological processes.
Original Publication:
Jaber, A., Reitz, M., Singh, A. et al. Hybrid architectures for terahertz molecular polaritonics. Nat Commun 15, 4427 (2024).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-48764-6
Scientific Contacts:
Claudiu Genes
Research Group Leader "Quantum Cooperative Phenomena"
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light
Staudtstraße 2, 91058 Erlangen
E-Mail: claudiu.genes@mpl.mpg.de
E-Mail: jmena22@uottawa.ca
Contact
Edda Fischer
Head of Communication and Marketing
Phone: +49 (0)9131 7133 805
MPLpresse@mpl.mpg.de
