A hybrid organic-inorganic polariton LED

Rahul Jayaprakash; Kyriacos Georgiou; Harriet Coulthard; Alexis Askitopoulos; Sai K Rajendran; David M Coles; Andrew J Musser; Jenny Clark; Ifor D W Samuel; Graham A Turnbull; Pavlos G Lagoudakis; David G Lidzey

doi:10.1038/s41377-019-0180-8

A hybrid organic-inorganic polariton LED

Light Sci Appl. 2019 Sep 4:8:81. doi: 10.1038/s41377-019-0180-8. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ 1Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Sheffield, Hicks Building, Hounsfield Road, Sheffield, S3 7RH UK.
² 2Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ UK.
³ 3Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Moskva, Russia.
⁴ 4Organic Semiconductor Centre, SUPA, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews, St. Andrews, Fife, KY16 9SS UK.
⁵ 5Present Address: Baker Laboratory, Cornell University, 259 East Avenue, Ithaca, NY 14850 USA.

Abstract

Polaritons are quasi-particles composed of a superposition of excitons and photons that can be created within a strongly coupled optical microcavity. Here, we describe a structure in which a strongly coupled microcavity containing an organic semiconductor is coupled to a second microcavity containing a series of weakly coupled inorganic quantum wells. We show that optical hybridisation occurs between the optical modes of the two cavities, creating a delocalised polaritonic state. By electrically injecting electron-hole pairs into the inorganic quantum-well system, we are able to transfer energy between the cavities and populate organic-exciton polaritons. Our approach represents a new strategy to create highly efficient devices for emerging 'polaritonic' technologies.

Keywords: Inorganic LEDs; Organic LEDs; Polaritons.