Toward Wide-Area Exciton-Polaritons in a Transferrable DBR Microcavity

Optical microcavities made by distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) have a strong wavelength-selection property, playing a significant role in studying light-matter coupling. When the confined photon energy is in resonant with the exciton, they will strongly couple with each other, leading to a new quasiparticle state called an exciton-polaritons. Recently, transition metal dichalcogenides (TMD) monolayers, with tightly bound excitons and strong optical response, have emerged as new candidates for polariton studies. However, traditional methods of making TMD monolayers generate small (ca. 10 microns) flakes, while we would like to see long-distance transport effects when the polaritons undergo spontaneous thermalized Bose-Einstein condensation in 2D systems. To accomplish this, we need a high-quality, flat, and wide-area top DBR and a large-area monolayer. Here we discuss our progress using new fabrication methods (cf. [1-2]) with great potential in achieving large-scale polariton condensation in 2D materials.