THINQE_PINQE: Infrared quantum devices operating in the ultra-strong light-matter coupling regime

Project funded by French National Research Agency (ANR), grant ANR-09-NANO-0007. Participating organisations named by the source: CNRS PARIS A; UNIVERSITE DE MONTPELLIER II [SCIENCES TECHNIQUES DU LANGUEDOC]; UNIVERSITE DE PARIS XI [PARIS- SUD]. Funded amount: EUR 705,000, as stated by the source. Runs 2010-01-01 to n/a. Source: OpenAIRE Graph, from the funder's project data (collected by OpenAIRE on 2019-12-24); national funding data, not CORDIS. Abstract given by the source: Far infrared optoelectronic devices have an extremely low radiative efficiency. Intersubband transitions (transitions between confined levels) in semiconductor quantum wells are used to realize emitters in the mid and far infrared. Nevertheless, the typical time of the spontaneous emission is several orders of magnitude longer than the non-radiative lifetime. As a consequence, electroluminescent devices have a very low quantum efficiency, and lasers have low wall plug efficiency. The ultimate goal of this project is to pave the way towards a new generation of optoelectronic devices, with increased quantum efficiency, based on the quantum superposition principle. To this aim, an intersubband excitation and a cavity mode are coupled in order to give rise to mixed light-matter states: the intersubband polaritons. When the coupling energy is of the same order of magnitude as the matter excitation energy, the system enters the so-called ultra-strong coupling regime, in which the usual approximations introduced to describe the interaction with light cannot be used anymore. In this project, we study the physics of the ultra-strong light-matter coupling, we realize devices operating in this regime and we demonstrate new functionalities issued from the control of the interaction with light. Electronic and photonic engineering for an extreme light-matter coupling and for the realization of electroluminescent devices. We design, fabricate and characterize novel devices based on semiconductor quantum wells inserted in a cavity. Our cavities are based on metals, and allow an ultra-subwavelength confinement of photons. As a consequence, the thickness of the region in which the interaction with the quantum system takes place can be maximized, in order to achieve very important coupling energies. For the quantum wells design, several strategies are adopted. The quantum wells can be tunnel coupled in order to realize structures in which the polariton states are resonantly [shortened; the full text is on the OpenAIRE page]

Original source.

Source: OpenAIRE Graph: projects of national funders, OpenAIRE, from the project data of French National Research Agency (ANR). Retrieved 2026-10-22. Licence: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (OpenAIRE Graph). Selected metadata, adapted presentation; the publisher's record is authoritative. No endorsement by the source is implied. Licence: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0).

AI-assisted summary: THINQE_PINQE project, funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR) with EUR 705,000, aims to develop a new generation of optoelectronic devices with increased quantum efficiency using quantum superposition. It involves CNRS PARIS A, UNIVERSITE DE MONTPELLIER II, and UNIVERSITE DE PARIS XI. Suggested technology pillar: sensing. Generated by AI from the public source text; it may contain errors and the original source is authoritative.