Exciton-Tunable Phase Control and Superstrong Coupling Through Multimode Polariton Engineering in Planar Waveguides
Abstract
Strong light-matter coupling in optical waveguides provides a versatile platform for engineering hybrid polaritonic modes and their dispersion. Here we investigate multimode exciton-photon coupling in visible semiconductor waveguides supporting several transverse electric modes. Using rigorous coupled-wave analysis combined with a coupled-oscillator model, we show that the photonic band structure can be engineered across a range of regimes, from conventional multimode strong coupling to the superstrong coupling regime, where the Rabi splitting becomes comparable to the spacing between adjacent photonic modes. In the latter regime, hybridization between orthogonal electromagnetic modes is enabled by restricting the active material to a subregion of the mode volume where the photonic modes exhibit strong mutual overlap. This breaking of the orthogonality leads to polaritonic branches whose composition can be tuned among several photonic modes and the exciton. We demonstrate that small shifts of the exciton resonance produce pronounced changes in the propagation constants of different polariton branches, enabling exciton-controlled phase modulation through modal interference and, in the superstrong coupling regime, direct modal switching across a continuous S-shaped dispersion. The resulting figures of merit predict π phase shifts for exciton energy shifts of only a few meV over propagation lengths of tens of micrometers, while larger shifts are still required for mode switching. These results establish multimode waveguide polaritons as a versatile platform spanning multiple coupling regimes, for compact phase and intensity control in integrated photonic architectures.
Versions
Related
- Engineering photonic crystal slab modes for strong exciton-photon coupling and polariton dispersion control
- Neural Networks with Exciton-Polariton Waveguides
- Propagation of pulse fluctuations of multimode sources in optical fibers and waveguides with arbitrary chromatic dispersion
- Nano-wrinkle waveguides for programmable polariton channeling.
- Noise-enhanced ballistic expansion of polariton wave-packets in a multimode cavity
BibTeX
@misc{burger2026excitontunable,
title = {{Exciton-Tunable Phase Control and Superstrong Coupling Through Multimode Polariton Engineering in Planar Waveguides}},
author = {Johannes Bürger and Erika Cortese and Simone Di Muzio and Daniele Sanvitto and Simone De Liberato and Dario Ballarini},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2605.27714},
eprint = {2605.27714},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.27714},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Exciton-Tunable Phase Control and Superstrong Coupling Through Multimode Polariton Engineering in Planar Waveguides
AU - Johannes Bürger
AU - Erika Cortese
AU - Simone Di Muzio
AU - Daniele Sanvitto
AU - Simone De Liberato
AU - Dario Ballarini
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/16
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2605.27714
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.27714
AB - Strong light-matter coupling in optical waveguides provides a versatile platform for engineering hybrid polaritonic modes and their dispersion. Here we investigate multimode exciton-photon coupling in visible semiconductor waveguides supporting several transverse electric modes. Using rigorous coupled-wave analysis combined with a coupled-oscillator model, we show that the photonic band structure can be engineered across a range of regimes, from conventional multimode strong coupling to the superstrong coupling regime, where the Rabi splitting becomes comparable to the spacing between adjacent photonic modes. In the latter regime, hybridization between orthogonal electromagnetic modes is enabled by restricting the active material to a subregion of the mode volume where the photonic modes exhibit strong mutual overlap. This breaking of the orthogonality leads to polaritonic branches whose composition can be tuned among several photonic modes and the exciton. We demonstrate that small shifts of the exciton resonance produce pronounced changes in the propagation constants of different polariton branches, enabling exciton-controlled phase modulation through modal interference and, in the superstrong coupling regime, direct modal switching across a continuous S-shaped dispersion. The resulting figures of merit predict π phase shifts for exciton energy shifts of only a few meV over propagation lengths of tens of micrometers, while larger shifts are still required for mode switching. These results establish multimode waveguide polaritons as a versatile platform spanning multiple coupling regimes, for compact phase and intensity control in integrated photonic architectures.
ER -