Exciton-Polaritons in BODIPY-filled Microcavities

This thesis concerns the fabrication and study of strongly coupled organic microcavities containing a series of different boron-dipyrromethene (BODIPY) fluorescent dyes dispersed in an optically inert polystyrene matrix. The photophysics of the different BODIPY dyes are first studied and it is shown that they are promising materials for polariton condensation. DBR-DBR microcavities containing thin films of dye/polystyrene blends are then investigated under angular white-light reflectivity and CW laser excitation; measurements that show that they can enter the strong coupling regime. Polaritons in such high quality factor structures are shown to undergo a phase transition when excited with a high density pulsed excitation, forming a polariton condensate. Power dependent and interferometry measurements are used to identify the condensation threshold and the spatial coherence length of the polariton condensate. Lower Q-factor microcavities, comprised of two silver mirrors are fabricated, containing two different BODIPY dyes. Energy transfer between the molecules is engineered using two different processes; (1) direct short-range dipole-dipole coupling between the molecules, and (2) polariton-mediated energy transfer. We assess the efficiency of the energy transfer by quantifying the polariton population density along each polariton branch following laser excitation. It is concluded that short-range (