Unconventional strong-to-weak coupling transition of an organic exciton mirror in a microcavity

The coherent, periodic energy transfer between light- and matter excitations characterizes the strong coupling regime of cavity exciton-polaritons, resulting, in the simplest case, in a Rabi-doublet in the spectral domain. We demonstrate a peculiar regime of strong light-matter coupling, which arises when photonic cavity modes couple to an ultra-thin excitonic mirror. We embed a 12 nm J-aggregated thin film in an open microcavity and tune the coupling strength from weak to the onset of ultrastrong coupling. At resonance, the excitonic mirror selectively changes dielectric to metallic field boundary conditions adding a 2π phase, which links optical cavity modes of different order. Our work gives an exciting perspective to ultra-fast cavity switches and photonic devices based on excitonic optical elements.