POLIMA will explore and manipulate polaritons in flatland, in engineered meta-surfaces interfacing light-emitting quantum systems or serving as light sources themselves. Expanding the frontiers of information and communication technology (ICT) remains an important societal challenge, also calling for development of quantum perspectives. In this context, EU considers photonics a key-enabling technology (KET) that can fuel emerging quantum-information processing. While integrated photonic devices suffer from inherently weak, hard-to-control coupling of light with matter, polaritonic configurations have emerged as a new paradigm that drives nanoscale light–matter interactions in solid-state systems to entirely new regimes.
Polaritons represent hybrid light–matter states, in which electromagnetic (EM) waves are coupled with dipole-active matter excitations such as plasmonic electron oscillations in metals, excitonic electron-hole pairs in semiconductors, or phononic lattice vibrations. With the emergence of 2D materials—from crystalline ultrathin metal flakes to graphene and transition-metal-dichalcogenide monolayers—polaritons can be explored and manipulated in flatland, in engineered metasurfaces interfacing light-emitting quantum systems, or serving as light sources themselves. Enabled by concerted efforts from fundamental theory, nano- and quantum-optics experiments, low-dimensional material synthesis, advanced nanofabrication, and atomic-scale material characterization, Center for Polariton-driven Light–Matter Interactions—POLIMA—embraces a curiosity-driven exploration with new paradigms intersecting quantum optics and polaritonic matter.
Contact
Asger Mortensen, Professor, Center Director