Nonadiabatic switching of a photonic band structure:Ultrastrong light-matter coupling and slow-down of light

Porer, M. and Ménard, J. M. and Leitenstorfer, A. and Huber, R. and Degl'Innocenti, Riccardo and Zanotto, S. and Biasiol, G. and Sorba, L. and Tredicucci, A. (2012) Nonadiabatic switching of a photonic band structure:Ultrastrong light-matter coupling and slow-down of light. Physical review B, 85 (8). ISSN 1098-0121

Abstract

We map out the band structure of a one-dimensional photonic crystal while a 12-fs control pulse activates ultrastrong interaction with quantized electronic transitions in semiconductor quantum wells. Phase-locked multi-terahertz transients trace the buildup of a large vacuum Rabi splitting and an unexpected asymmetric formation of the upper and lower polariton bands. The pronounced flattening of the photonic bands causes a slow-down of the group velocity by one order of magnitude on the time scale of the oscillation period of light.