Negative-mass exciton polaritons induced by dissipative light-matter coupling in an atomically thin semiconductor

M. Wurdack*, T. Yun, M. Katzer, A. G. Truscott, A. Knorr, M. Selig, E. A. Ostrovskaya*, E. Estrecho*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    7 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Dispersion engineering is a powerful and versatile tool that can vary the speed of light signals and induce negative-mass effects in the dynamics of particles and quasiparticles. Here, we show that dissipative coupling between bound electron-hole pairs (excitons) and photons in an optical microcavity can lead to the formation of exciton polaritons with an inverted dispersion of the lower polariton branch and hence, a negative mass. We perform direct measurements of the anomalous dispersion in atomically thin (monolayer) WS2 crystals embedded in planar microcavities and demonstrate that the propagation direction of the negative-mass polaritons is opposite to their momentum. Our study introduces the concept of non-Hermitian dispersion engineering for exciton polaritons and opens a pathway for realising new phases of quantum matter in a solid state.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number1026
    JournalNature Communications
    Volume14
    Issue number1
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Dec 2023

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