Semiconducting nanocrystals in open-access microcavities are promising systems in which enhanced light-matter interactions lead to quantum effects such as the modulation of the spontaneous emission process and exciton-polariton formation. In this thesis I present improvements of the open cavity platform which serves to confine the electromagnetic field with mode volumes down to the λ<sup>3</sup> regime and demonstrate results in both the weak and strong coupling regimes of cavity quantum electrodynamics with a range of different low-dimensional materials. I report cavity fabrication details allowing a peak finesse of 5 × 10<sup>4</sup> and advanced photonic structures such as coupled cavities in the open cavity geometry. By incorporating two-dimensional materials and nanoplatelets in the cavity I demonstrate the strong coupling regime of light-matter interaction with the formation of exciton-polaritons, quasi-particles composed of both photon and exciton, at room temperature. In the perturbative weak coupling regime I show pronounced modulation of the single-photon emission from CdSe/ZnS quantum dots and the two-dimensional material WSe<sub>2</sub> and demonstrate Purcell enhancement of the spontaneous emission rate by factors of 2 at room temperature and 8 at low temperature. The findings presented in this thesis pave the way to establish open microcavities as a platform for a wide range of applications in nanophotonics and quantum information technologies.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:748844 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Flatten, Lucas Christoph |
| Contributors | Smith, Jason |
| Publisher | University of Oxford |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:a5f4797f-ea23-49e4-bd1e-2483154508d6 |
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