Ultrafast terahertz saturable absorbers using tailored intersubband polaritons

Jürgen Raab, Francesco P. Mezzapesa, Leonardo Viti, Nils Dessmann, Laura K. Diebel, Lianhe Li, A. Giles Davies, Edmund H. Linfield, Christoph Lange, Rupert Huber () and Miriam S. Vitiello ()
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Jürgen Raab: University of Regensburg
Francesco P. Mezzapesa: CNR-Istituto Nanoscienze and Scuola Normale Superiore
Leonardo Viti: CNR-Istituto Nanoscienze and Scuola Normale Superiore
Nils Dessmann: CNR-Istituto Nanoscienze and Scuola Normale Superiore
Laura K. Diebel: University of Regensburg
Lianhe Li: University of Leeds
A. Giles Davies: University of Leeds
Edmund H. Linfield: University of Leeds
Christoph Lange: University of Regensburg
Rupert Huber: University of Regensburg
Miriam S. Vitiello: CNR-Istituto Nanoscienze and Scuola Normale Superiore

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Semiconductor heterostructures have enabled a great variety of applications ranging from GHz electronics to photonic quantum devices. While nonlinearities play a central role for cutting-edge functionality, they require strong field amplitudes owing to the weak light-matter coupling of electronic resonances of naturally occurring materials. Here, we ultrastrongly couple intersubband transitions of semiconductor quantum wells to the photonic mode of a metallic cavity in order to custom-tailor the population and polarization dynamics of intersubband cavity polaritons in the saturation regime. Two-dimensional THz spectroscopy reveals strong subcycle nonlinearities including six-wave mixing and a collapse of light-matter coupling within 900 fs. This collapse bleaches the absorption, at a peak intensity one order of magnitude lower than previous all-integrated approaches and well achievable by state-of-the-art QCLs, as demonstrated by a saturation of the structure under cw-excitation. We complement our data by a quantitative theory. Our results highlight a path towards passively mode-locked QCLs based on polaritonic saturable absorbers in a monolithic single-chip design.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-18004-8

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