Exciting polaritons with quantum light

Abstract

We discuss the excitation of polaritons---strongly-coupled states of light and matter---by quantum light, instead of the usual laser or thermal excitation. As one illustration of the new horizons thus opened, we introduce Mollow spectroscopy, a theoretical concept for a spectroscopic technique that consists in scanning the output of resonance fluorescence onto an optical target, from which weak nonlinearities can be read with high precision even in strongly dissipative environments.