Polaritonics: hybrid light-matter quasiparticles for science and technology

by Dr Simone De Liberato (University of Southampton)

Monday 14 Jan 2019, 11:30 → 13:00 Europe/Madrid

IFAE Seminar Room

In this seminar I will start by introducing the physics and technology of  polaritons, hybrid  light-matter excitations generated by photons trapped in nanoscopic resonators. Half-light and half-matter, those quasiparticles inherit the best traits of their parents: they are almost as light and fast as photons, but their mutual interaction is almost as strong as the one between massive particles. This makes of them an extremely powerful technological platform, which has been exploited in a number of domains, from optoelectronics to chemistry. After having presented some of the most remarkable milestones of polaritonic physics, I will focus on a few specific lines of research I have been pursuing during the past decade. In particular, I will present recent advances toward mid-infrared polaritonic lasers, and I will discuss how the non-perturbative nature of light-matter coupling can be exploited to engineer novel quantum materials with unique properties.