Guided Bloch Surface Wave Polaritons on Patterned Distributed Bragg Reflectors at Room Temperature

Guiding long-range energy transport is key to enabling a diversity of photonic and optoelectronic device operations, such as optical routing, light emission, and photocurrent generation. For this purpose, Bloch surface waves sustained by truncated dielectric multilayer structures have been exploited for strong coupling with excitons in organic materials and 2D inorganic semiconductors. The hybrid light–matter states, called Bloch surface wave polaritons (BSWPs), have been shown to support long-range energy transport. However, guided BSWPs have not yet been reported. Here, we demonstrate that patterned distributed Bragg reflector waveguides combined with an excitonic, organic thin film that support laterally confined BSWPs can guide exciton polariton propagation over distances approaching 60 μm at room temperature. The 5 μm wide ridge waveguides support up to seven BSWP modes, whose propagation lengths increase with the number of dielectric pairs due to the increased quality factor of the system. Our results provide a practical approach for the systematic guiding of energy transport mediated by BSWPs, thus enabling a new generation of polaritonic integrated circuits that operate under ambient conditions.