Novel Nanostructures and Materials for Strong Light–Matter Interactions

Quantum mechanical interactions between electromagnetic radiation and matter underlie a broad spectrum of optical phenomena. Strong light-matter interactions result in the well-known vacuum Rabi splitting and emergence of new polaritonic eigenmodes of the coupled system. Thanks to recent progress in nanofabrication, observation of strong coupling has become possible in a great variety of optical nanostructures. Here, we review recently studied and emerging materials for realization of strong light–matter interactions. We present general theoretical formalism describing strong coupling and give an overview of various photonic structures and materials allowing for realization of this regime, including plasmonic and dielectric nanoantennas, novel two-dimensional materials, carbon nanotubes, and molecular vibrational transitions. In addition, we discuss practical applications that can benefit from these effects and give an outlook on unsettled questions that remain open for future research.