Regensburg 2010 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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HL: Fachverband Halbleiterphysik
HL 25: Focussed Session: Strong Light Matter Coupling II
HL 25.1: Hauptvortrag
Dienstag, 23. März 2010, 14:00–14:30, H13
Sub-cycle switching of ultrastrong light-matter interaction — A. A. Anappara1,2, A. Sell1, G. Günter1, G. Biasiol3, L. Sorba2,3, S. DeLiberato4, C. Ciuti4, A. Tredicucci2, A. Leitenstorfer1, and •R. Huber1 — 1Fachbereich Physik, Universität Konstanz, Germany — 2NEST CNR-INFM and Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy — 3Laboratorio Nazionale TASC CNR-INFM, Trieste, Italy — 4CNRS and Universite Paris Diderot-Paris 7; Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, France
While sophisticated light-matter coupling has been tailored in all three spatial dimensions, on a sub-wavlength scale, control in the fourth dimension - time - has been barely developed. Here, we exploit ultrabroadband terahertz technology and an intersubband cavity structure to demonstrate sub-cycle switching, for the first time: A 12-fs near-infrared laser pulse photoinjects electrons into the lowest conduction subband of the quantum wells, thereby activating mid-infrared transitions to the next higher subband. The system is found to morph from a bare microcavity to an ultrastrongly coupled cavity polariton system, within less than a cycle of light. We monitor directly in the time domain how a coherent photon population trapped inside a bare microcavity converts to light-matter mixed states when coupling is abruptly activated. This system forms a first promising laboratory for unprecedented sub-cycle QED phenomena reminiscent of Hawking radiation of black holes and represents an efficient room-temperature switching device at the ultimate speed.