We investigate the interaction of excitons in a two-dimensional lattice and photons in a planar cavity in the presence of disorder. The strong exciton-photon coupling is described in terms of polariton quasiparticles, which are scattered by a disorder potential. We consider three kinds of disorder: (i) inhomogeneous exciton energy, (ii) inhomogeneous exciton-photon coupling, and (iii) deviations from an ideal lattice. These three types of disorder are characteristic of different physical systems. Their separate analysis gives insight into the competition between randomness and light matter coupling. We consider conventional planar polariton structures (in which excitons are resonant with photon modes emitting in the direction normal to the cavity plane) and Bragg polariton structures (in which excitons in a lattice are resonant with photon modes at a finite angle satisfying the Bragg condition). We calculate the absorption spectra in the normal direction and at the Bragg angle by direct diagonalization of the exciton-photon Hamiltonian. We found that in some cases weak disorder increases the light matter coupling and leads to a larger polariton splitting. Moreover, the coupling of excitons and photons is less sensitive to disorder of type (ii) and (iii). This suggests that polaritonic structures realized with impurities in a semiconductor or with atoms in an optical lattice are a good candidate for the observation of some of the Bragg polariton features.

• Received 21 February 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.78.035323