Nonlinear valley phonon scattering under the strong coupling regime

• DOI: 10.1038/s41563-021-00972-x
• Publication Date: 2021-04-12T16:03:55Z
• Authors: Xiaoze Liu; Jun Yi; Sui Yang; Erh-Chen Lin; Yue-Jiao Zhang; Peiyao Zhang; Jian-Feng Li; Yuan Wang; Yi-Hsien Lee; Zhong-Qun Tian; Xiang Zhang
• Keywords: Phonon scattering

Research efforts of cavity quantum electrodynamics have focused on the manipulation of matter hybridized with photons under the strong coupling regime1-3. This has led to striking discoveries including polariton condensation2 and single-photon nonlinearity3, where the phonon scattering plays a critical role1-9. However, resolving the phonon scattering remains challenging for its non-radiative complexity. Here we demonstrate nonlinear phonon scattering in monolayer MoS2 that is strongly coupled to a plasmonic cavity mode. By hybridizing excitons and cavity photons, the phonon scattering is equipped with valley degree of freedom and boosted with superlinear enhancement to a stimulated regime, as revealed by Raman spectroscopy and our theoretical model. The valley polarization is drastically enhanced and sustained throughout the stimulated regime, suggesting a coherent scattering process enabled by the strong coupling. Our findings clarify the feasibility of valley-cavity-based systems for lighting, imaging, optical information processing and manipulating quantum correlations in cavity quantum electrodynamics2,3,10-17.