Mischok Andreas, Siegmund Bernhard, Le Roux Florian, Hillebrandt Sabina, Vandewal Koen, Gather Malte C
Humboldt Centre for Nano- and Biophotonics, Institute for Light and Matter, Department of Chemistry, University of Cologne, Greinstr. 4-6, Köln, Germany.
School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews, North Haugh, St Andrews, United Kingdom.
Nat Commun. 2024 Dec 3;15(1):10529. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-54623-1.
Thin film interference is integral to modern photonics, e.g., allowing for precise design of high performance optical filters, photovoltaics and light-emitting devices. However, interference inevitably leads to a generally undesired change of spectral characteristics with angle. Here, we introduce a strategy to overcome this fundamental limit in optics by utilizing and tuning the exciton-polariton modes arising in ultra-strongly coupled microcavities. We demonstrate optical filters with narrow pass bands that shift by less than their half width (< 15 nm) even at extreme angles. By expanding this strategy to strong coupling with the photonic sidebands of dielectric multilayer stacks, we also obtain filters with high extinction ratios and up to 98% peak transmission. Finally, we apply this approach in flexible filters, organic photodiodes, and polarization-sensitive filtering. These results illustrate how strong coupling provides additional degrees of freedom in thin film optics that will enable exciting new applications in micro-optics, sensing, and biophotonics.
薄膜干涉是现代光子学不可或缺的一部分，例如，它能实现高性能光学滤波器、光伏器件和发光器件的精确设计。然而，干涉不可避免地会导致光谱特性随角度发生通常不希望出现的变化。在此，我们介绍一种策略，通过利用和调控超强耦合微腔中产生的激子极化激元模式来克服光学领域的这一基本限制。我们展示了具有窄通带的光学滤波器，即使在极端角度下，其通带移动也小于半高宽（< 15 nm）。通过将这一策略扩展到与介质多层膜堆的光子边带强耦合，我们还获得了具有高消光比和高达98%峰值透过率的滤波器。最后，我们将这种方法应用于柔性滤波器、有机光电二极管和偏振敏感滤波。这些结果表明，强耦合如何在薄膜光学中提供额外的自由度，从而在微光学、传感和生物光子学领域实现令人兴奋的新应用。
