Strain-engineered room temperature cavity polariton in ZnO whispering gallery microcavity

Abstract

Cavity polaritons, originating from the strong coupling effect between cavity modes and excitons, have been tremendously investigated because of their high potential in new or quantum optoelectronic devices. Among them, realization of their dynamic controllability is highly desirable for real applications. In this work, we present a dynamic modulation of cavity polaritons via strain-engineering in the ZnO whispering gallery microcavity. By using a home-made strain apparatus, a nearly uniaxial stress is precisely applied to ZnO microwires, thus inducing an internal strain along its c-axis. Dynamic tuning of cavity polariton modes is clearly characterized by angle-resolved microphotoluminescence spectroscopy. The coupled oscillator's model with fitting parameters of strain-dependent excitons' energies can well describe the modes' redshift. Moreover, we show that the modes' redshift can also be understood by the strain-induced refractive index increase, described by the Lorentz model, of which the underlying mechanism is also related to light-exciton strong coupling. Finally, the strain-engineered dynamic tuning of polariton lasing modes is demonstrated as well, and this actually provides convincing evidence for the polariton states surviving above the threshold. This work indicates that strain-engineered cavity polaritons would pave an alternative way for developing polariton-based integrated or flexible optoelectronic devices.