Ultrastrong coupling of the cyclotron transition of a two-dimensional electron gas to a THz metamaterial

Abstract: Artificial cavity photon resonators with ultrastrong light-matter interactions are attracting interest both in semiconductor and superconducting systems, due to the possibility of manipulating the cavity quantum electrodynamic ground state with controllable physical properties. We report here experiments showing ultrastrong light-matter coupling in a terahertz metamaterial where the cyclotron transition of a high mobility two-dimensional electron gas is coupled to the photonic modes of an array of electronic split-ring resonators. We observe a normalized coupling ratio $\frac{\Omega}{\omega_c}=0.58$ between the vacuum Rabi frequency $\Omega$ and the cyclotron frequency $\omega_c$. Our system appears to be scalable in frequency and could be brought to the microwave spectral range with the potential of strongly controlling the magnetotransport properties of a high-mobility 2DEG.