Baraclough Milo, Hooper Ian R, Barnes William L
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Exeter, Stocker Road, Exeter, United Kingdom EX4 4QL.
ACS Photonics. 2021 Oct 20;8(10):2997-3003. doi: 10.1021/acsphotonics.1c00931. Epub 2021 Sep 20.
The formation of polariton modes due to the strong coupling of light and matter has led to exciting developments in physics, chemistry, and materials science. The potential to modify the properties of molecular materials by strongly coupling molecules to a confined light field is so far-reaching and so attractive that a new field known as "polaritonic chemistry" is now emerging. However, the molecular scale of the materials involved makes probing strong coupling at the individual resonator level extremely challenging. Here, we offer a complementary approach based upon metamaterials, an approach that enables us to use cm-scale structures, thereby opening a new way to explore strong coupling phenomena. As proof-of-principle, we show that metamolecules placed inside a radio frequency cavity may exhibit strong coupling and show that near-field radio frequency techniques allow us, for the first time, to probe the response of individual metamolecules under strong coupling conditions.
由于光与物质的强耦合而形成的极化激元模式，在物理学、化学和材料科学领域引发了令人兴奋的进展。通过将分子与受限光场强耦合来改变分子材料性质的潜力是如此深远且极具吸引力，以至于一个名为“极化激元化学”的新领域正在兴起。然而，所涉及材料的分子尺度使得在单个谐振器层面探测强耦合极具挑战性。在此，我们提供一种基于超材料的互补方法，这种方法使我们能够使用厘米级结构，从而开辟了一条探索强耦合现象的新途径。作为原理验证，我们表明置于射频腔体内的超分子可能表现出强耦合，并表明近场射频技术首次使我们能够探测单个超分子在强耦合条件下的响应。
