Chiral Plasmons and Controllable Quenching of Super-radiance in Two Dimensional Layered Materials

In recent years, enhanced light-matter interactions through a plethora of dipole-type polaritonic excitations have been observed in two-dimensional (2D) layered materials. In graphene, electrically tunable and highly confined plasmon-polaritons were predicted and observed, opening up opportunities for optoelectronics, bio-sensing and other mid-infrared
applications. In this invited talk I will report our recent efforts on controlling light absorption and emission process through quantum effects.

For example, surface plasmons of different chirality can be excited in two dimensional materials that support transverse currents. We propose a method to optically excite and characterize the electromagnetic response and surface electromagnetic modes in a generic gapped Dirac material under pumping with circularly polarized light. The valley imbalance due to pumping leads to a net Berry curvature, giving rise to a finite transverse conductivity. Furthermore, we show that the historically studied two-dimensional (2D) magnetoplasmon, which bears gapped bulk states and gapless one-way edge states near-zero frequency, is topologically analogous to the 2D topological p+ip superconductor with chiral Majorana edge states and zero modes.  We also demonstrate experimentally ultrafast quenching of 2D molecular aggregates at picosecond timescale assisted by surface plasmons. Our analysis reveals that the metal-mediated dipole-dipole interaction increases the energy dissipation rate by at least five times faster than that predicted by conventional models. Our results can offer novel design pathways to the light-matter interaction in a variety of photon-exciton systems with applications such as high speed visible light communication.