We report on the spin properties of bright polariton solitons supported by an external pump to compensate losses. We observe robust circularly polarized solitons when a circularly polarized pump is applied, a result attributed to phase synchronization between nondegenerate TE and TM polarized polariton modes at high momenta. For the case of a linearly polarized pump, either σ þ or σ − circularly polarized bright solitons can be switched on in a controlled way by a σ þ or σ − writing beam, respectively. This feature arises directly from the widely differing interaction strengths between co-and cross-circularly polarized polaritons. In the case of orthogonally linearly polarized pump and writing beams, the soliton emission on average is found to be unpolarized, suggesting strong spatial evolution of the soliton polarization. The observed results are in agreement with theory, which predicts stable circularly polarized solitons and unstable linearly polarized solitons.

Exciton-polaritons in semiconductor microcavities form a highly nonlinear platform to study a variety of effects interfacing optical, condensed matter, quantum and statistical physics. We show that the complex polariton patterns generated by picosecond pulses in microcavity wire waveguides can be understood as the Cherenkov radiation emitted by bright polariton solitons, which is enabled by the unique microcavity polariton dispersion, which has momentum intervals with positive and negative group velocities. Unlike in optical fibres and semiconductor waveguides, we observe that the microcavity wire Cherenkov radiation is predominantly emitted with negative group velocity and therefore propagates backwards relative to the propagation direction of the emitting soliton. We have developed a theory of the microcavity wire polariton solitons and of their Cherenkov radiation and conducted a series of experiments, where we have measured polariton-soliton pulse compression, pulse breaking and emission of the backward Cherenkov radiation.

We report propagating bound microcavity polariton soliton arrays consisting of multipeak structures either along (x) or perpendicular (y) to the direction of propagation. Soliton arrays of up to five solitons are observed, with the number of solitons controlled by the size and power of the triggering laser pulse. The breakup along the x direction occurs when the effective area of the trigger pulse exceeds the characteristic soliton size determined by polariton-polariton interactions. Narrowing of soliton emission in energymomentum space indicates phase locking between adjacent solitons, consistent with numerical modeling which predicts stable multihump soliton solutions. In the y direction, the breakup originates from inhomogeneity across the wave front in the transverse direction which develops into a stable array only in the solitonic regime via phase-dependent interactions of propagating fronts. [6,7]. In many aspects, solitons behave like artificial particles. They may repel or attract depending on their relative phase as was shown in optical fibers [8] and cold atom systems [9]. Multisoliton complexes can form when localized initial perturbations split into multiple peaks [10,11]. Furthermore, solitons can selforganize into stable patterns with an equilibrium spacing [12] or can scatter in a collision [13].Recently, polaritons, hybrid light-matter particles forming in the strong coupling regime in semiconductor microcavities [14,15], have been shown to exhibit many interesting nonlinear hydrodynamic phenomena such as superfluidity [16] and integer [17] and half vortices [18]. Microcavity polaritons are an open system far from equilibrium. Bright polariton solitons have been observed [19], which exist when an external pump fully compensates photonic losses and the decay of the excitonic coherence and are therefore termed dissipative. Polariton solitons can be manipulated on a picosecond time scale, which is promising for the development of miniature polaritonic circuits and logic gates [20]. Dark soliton trains in a 1D conservative microcavity system (no pump) were recently predicted theoretically [21], whereas dissipative polariton soliton patterns in microcavities remain unexplored.Semiconductor optical resonators are prone to growth defects and imperfections [22], and, in contrast to atomic condensates [11], the observation of multiple solitons in such systems is a challenging task, even in well-studied systems such as vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) [23,24]. In contrast to solitons in VCSELs, microcavity polariton solitons are excited at high momenta. Combined with large energy blueshifts due to the giant optical nonlinearity, this makes polariton solitons less sensitive to photonic disorder, enabling our observation of stable multisoliton patterns.Here we demonstrate the formation of dissipative polariton soliton patterns. The interplay between bistability of the external pump field, polariton-polariton scattering, and polariton negative effective mass along the propagation direction e...

We explore nonlinear transitions of polariton wavepackets, first, to a soliton and then to a standing wave polariton condensate in a multi-mode microwire system. At low polariton density we observe ballistic propagation of the multi-mode polariton wavepackets arising from the interference between different transverse modes. With increasing polariton density, the wavepackets transform into single mode bright solitons due to effects of both inter-modal and intra-modal polariton-polariton scattering. Further increase of the excitation density increases thermalisation speed leading to relaxation of the polariton density distribution in momentum space with the resultant formation of a non-equilibrium condensate manifested by a standing wave pattern across the whole sample.

Optical solitons are an ideal platform for the implementation of communication lines, since they can be packed extremely close one to another without risking partial loss of the encoded information due to their interaction. On the other hand, soliton-soliton interactions are needed to implement computations and achieve all-optical information processing. Here we study how bright dissipative polariton solitons interact and exploit their interaction to implement AND and OR gates with state of the art technology. Moreover, we show that soliton-soliton interaction can be used to determine the sign of α2, the parameter describing the interaction between polaritons with opposite spin.

A new approach to single-molecule DNA sequencing in which dNTPs, released by pyrophosphorolysis from the strand to be sequenced, are captured in microdroplets and read directly could have substantial advantages over current sequence-by-synthesis methods; however, there is no existing method sensitive enough to detect a single nucleotide in a microdroplet. We have developed a method for dNTP detection based on an enzymatic two-stage reaction which produces a robust fluorescent signal that is easy to detect and process. By taking advantage of the inherent specificity of DNA polymerases and ligases, coupled with volume restriction in microdroplets, this method allows us to simultaneously detect the presence of and distinguish between, the four natural dNTPs at the single-molecule level, with negligible cross-talk.

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Despite remarkable progress in DNA sequencing technologies there remains a trade-off between short-read platforms, having limited ability to sequence homopolymers, repeated motifs or long-range structural variation, and long-read platforms, which tend to have lower accuracy and/or throughput. Moreover, current methods do not allow direct readout of epigenetic modifications from a single read. With the aim of addressing these limitations, we have developed an optical electrowetting sequencing platform that uses step-wise nucleotide triphosphate (dNTP) release, capture and detection in microdroplets from single DNA molecules. Each microdroplet serves as a reaction vessel that identifies an individual dNTP based on a robust fluorescence signal, with the detection chemistry extended to enable detection of 5-methylcytosine. Our platform uses small reagent volumes and inexpensive equipment, paving the way to cost-effective single-molecule DNA sequencing, capable of handling widely varying GC-bias, and demonstrating direct detection of epigenetic modifications.