Ultrastrong Coupling of the Cyclotron Transition of a 2D Electron Gas to a THz Metamaterial

Artificial cavity photon resonators with ultrastrong light-matter interactions are attracting interest both in semiconductor and superconducting systems because of 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 (THz) metamaterial where the cyclotron transition of a high-mobility two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) is coupled to the photonic modes of an array of electronic split-ring resonators. We observe a normalized coupling ratio, 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.