Enwrapped Perylene Bisimide Enables Room Temperature Polariton Lasing and Photonic Lattices

Abstract

Perylene bisimides (PBIs) are organic dyes with photoluminescence quantum yields (PLQY) close to unity in solution and great thermal and photo-chemical stability. These features alongside the tunability of their solid-state packing arrangement via chemical functionalization make this material class an excellent candidate for exciton-polariton lasing at room temperature. Polariton lasing is well understood in III–V semiconductors at cryogenic temperatures, however, the search for emitter materials for robust and versatile room-temperature applications is ongoing. While, e.g., perovskites and several organic materials are identified to support polariton lasing, many of these materials lack tunability and long-term stability under ambient conditions. Here, optical microcavities are fabricated using a strongly enwrapped PBI chromophore with prevailing monomer-like absorption and emission properties in the solid state. Voluminous bay-substituents prevent π-π-stacking induced PLQY-quenching, thereby enabling polariton lasing at room temperature. Additionally, photonic confinement in single hemispheric resonators is demonstrated leading to localized polaritonic modes with discrete energies, as well as optical lattices revealing distinct polaritonic band-structures. Due to the possibility of tunable properties by the precise control of the solid-state packing arrangement of PBI emitters, the results pave the way for polarization-dependent light-matter coupling, including topological photonic effects within oriented crystalline thin-film microcavity structures.