Optical Emission Spectra of Molecular Excitonic Polariton Computed at the First-Principles Level QED-TDDFT

Abstract

In microcavity, strong coupling between light and molecules leads to the formation of hybrid excitations, i. e., the polaritons, or exciton-polaritons. Such coupling may alter the energy landscape of the system and the optical properties of the material, making it an effective approach for controlling the light emission from molecular materials. However, due to the complexity of vibrational modes, spectroscopic calculations for organic exciton-polaritons remain to be challenging. In this work, based on the linear-response quantum-electrodynamical time-dependent density functional theory (QED-TDDFT), we employ the thermal vibrational correlation function (TVCF) formalism to calculate the molecular optical spectrum of the lower polaritons (LP) at first-principles level for three molecules, i. e., anthracene, distyrylbenzenes (DSB), and rubrene. The polaron decoupling effect is confirmed from our first-principles computations. The theoretical emission spectra of LP provide new insights for aiding molecular and device design in microcavities that are otherwise hindered due to the lack of vibrational information.