The
concept of strong light–matter coupling has been demonstrated
in semiconductor structures, and it is poised to revolutionize the
design and implementation of components, including solid state lasers
and detectors. We demonstrate an original nanospectroscopy technique
that permits the study of the light–matter interaction in single
subwavelength-sized nanocavities where far-field spectroscopy is not
possible using conventional techniques. We inserted a thin (∼150
nm) polymer layer with negligible absorption in the mid-infrared range
(5 μm < λ < 12 μm) inside a metal–insulator–metal
resonant cavity, where a photonic mode and the intersubband transition
of a semiconductor quantum well are strongly coupled. The intersubband
transition peaks at λ = 8.3 μm, and the nanocavity is
overall 270 nm thick. Acting as a nonperturbative transducer, the
polymer layer introduces only a limited alteration of the optical
response while allowing to reveal the optical power absorbed inside
the concealed cavity. Spectroscopy of the cavity losses is enabled
by the polymer thermal expansion due to heat dissipation in the active
part of the cavity, and performed using atomic force microscopy (AFM).
This innovative approach allows the typical anticrossing characteristic
of the polaritonic dispersion to be identified in the cavity loss
spectra at the single nanoresonator level. Results also suggest that
near-field coupling of the external drive field to the top metal patch
mediated by a metal-coated AFM probe tip is possible, and it enables
the near-field mapping of the cavity mode symmetry including in the
presence of a strong light–matter interaction.
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