Terahertz Landau Polaritons in Nano-slots: Ultrastrong Coupling under Extreme Spatial Confinement

We report ultrastrong coupling of the cyclotron resonance of a two-dimensional electron gas in a GaAs quantum well to terahertz cavity photons under extreme confinement to the nanometer scale. This was realized by an array of nano-slots fabricated close to the quantum well layer on the GaAs substrate. Our terahertz magnetospectroscopic measurements revealed two polariton branches as a function of applied magnetic field. While the photon-like part of the two polariton branches was clearly observed, the matter-like part was generally elusive. Our electromagnetic simulations quantitatively reproduce our observation for the upper-polariton branch. However, for the lower-polariton branch, our simulations predict a pronounced resonance, which was absent in experimental spectra. This discrepancy may be a consequence of the breakdown of the dipole approximation in this extreme confinement situation.