Polariton Formation and Propagation in an Optical Microcavity with Embedded Transition Metal Dichalcogenide with Disorder*

Transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMD) provide a platform for optoelectronic applications at room temperatures due to strong light-matter interactions and exciton stability. By considering the coupled dynamics of cavity photons and TMD excitons, we numerically studied exciton-polariton formation and propagation in an optical microcavity with an embedded TMD layer. Specifically, we studied the case where the TMD excitons are affected by a short-scale (10-100 nm) random potential due to the interactions with the environment inside the cavity. To characterize the stability of the polaritonic states in the system, we numerically calculated the energy of eigen modes in a cavity as a function of the wave number, E(k). In our poster, we present our findings and, in particular, we discuss the crossover from the polaritonic modes formed at weak disorder to strongly broadened photonic and excitonic modes at strong disorder. We also discuss the polariton formation and propagation in a cavity where the TMD layer is non-uniform and consists of a set of separate, topologically disconnected microflakes.