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Updated: Nov 17, 2025

Determination of the Excitation and Coupling Rates Between Light Emitters and Surface Plasmon Polaritons
Published on: July 21, 2018
Engineering the Spectral and Spatial Dispersion of Thermal Emission via Polariton-Phonon Strong Coupling
Guanyu Lu1, Christopher R Gubbin2, J Ryan Nolen3
1Department of Mechanical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37212, United States.
Abstract:
Strong coupling between optical modes can be implemented into nanophotonic design to modify the energy-momentum dispersion relation. This approach offers potential avenues for tuning the thermal emission frequency, line width, polarization, and spatial coherence. Here, we employ three-mode strong coupling between propagating and localized surface phonon polaritons, with zone-folded longitudinal optic phonons within periodic arrays of 4H-SiC nanopillars. Energy exchange, mode evolution, and coupling strength between the three polariton branches are explored experimentally and theoretically. The influence of strong coupling upon the angle-dependent thermal emission was directly measured, providing excellent agreement with theory. We demonstrate a 5-fold improvement in the spatial coherence and 3-fold enhancement of the quality factor of the polaritonic modes, with these hybrid modes also exhibiting a mixed character that could enable opportunities to realize electrically driven emission. Our results show that polariton-phonon strong coupling enables thermal emitters, which meet the requirements for a host of IR applications in a simple, lightweight, narrow-band, and yet bright emitter.
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