Department of Materials, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PH, UK.
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts 01610-1477, USA.
Nat Commun. 2014 Nov 28;5:5561. doi: 10.1038/ncomms6561.
Strong exciton-photon coupling is the result of a reversible exchange of energy between an excited state and a confined optical field. This results in the formation of polariton states that have energies different from the exciton and photon. We demonstrate strong exciton-photon coupling between light-harvesting complexes and a confined optical mode within a metallic optical microcavity. The energetic anti-crossing between the exciton and photon dispersions characteristic of strong coupling is observed in reflectivity and transmission with a Rabi splitting energy on the order of 150 meV, which corresponds to about 1,000 chlorosomes coherently coupled to the cavity mode. We believe that the strong coupling regime presents an opportunity to modify the energy transfer pathways within photosynthetic organisms without modification of the molecular structure.
强激子-光子耦合是激发态与受限光场之间能量可逆交换的结果。这导致形成具有与激子和光子不同能量的极化激元态。我们在金属光学微腔中展示了光捕获复合物与受限光模式之间的强激子-光子耦合。在反射率和透射率中观察到强耦合特征的激子和光子色散的能量反交叉，其拉比分裂能约为 150 毫电子伏特，这对应于大约 1000 个叶绿素体与腔模相干耦合。我们相信，在不改变分子结构的情况下，强耦合状态为修改光合生物中的能量转移途径提供了机会。
