Bose-Einstein Condensation of Microcavity Polaritons in a Trap

Balili, Ryan; Hartwell, V.; Snoke, D. W.; Pfeiffer, L. N.; West, K. W.

doi:10.1126/science.1140990

Cited by 1,187 publications

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“…As compared with previously reported techniques to spatially confine polariton condensates 5,7,28,29 , the size and height of the trap can be continuously controlled by changing both the excitation power and the position of the spot. Controlling both the propagation and the wavefunction of a polariton condensate opens the way to the realization of polariton circuits, a first step towards high-speed all-optical information processing 22 .…”

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confidence: 98%

“…1 Laboratoire de Photonique et de Nanostructures, LPN/CNRS, Route de Nozay, 91460, Marcoussis, France, 2 LASMEA, Clermont Université, Université Blaise Pascal, CNRS, 24 av des Landais, Aubiere, 63177, France, 3 Departamento de Fisica de Materiales, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Madrid 28049, Spain, 4 Institut des NanoSciences de Paris, CNRS UMR 7588, Université P. et M. Curie, Campus Boucicaut, 140 Rue de Lourmel, 75015 Paris, France, 5 Physics and Astronomy School, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK. *e-mail: jacqueline.bloch@lpn.cnrs.fr.…”

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Spontaneous formation and optical manipulation of extended polariton condensates

et al. 2010

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Cavity exciton-polaritons 1,2 (polaritons) are bosonic quasiparticles offering a unique solid-state system for investigating interacting condensates 3-10 . Up to now, disorder-induced localization and short lifetimes 4,6,11 have prevented the establishment of long-range off-diagonal order 12 needed for any quantum manipulation of the condensate wavefunction. In this work, using a wire microcavity with polariton lifetimes much longer than in previous samples, we show that polariton condensates can propagate over macroscopic distances outside the excitation area, while preserving their spontaneous spatial coherence. An extended condensate wavefunction builds up with a degree of spatial coherence larger than 50% over distances 50 times the polariton de Broglie wavelength. The expansion of the condensate is shown to be governed by the repulsive potential induced by photogenerated excitons within the excitation area. The control of this local potential offers a new and versatile method to manipulate extended polariton condensates. As an illustration, we demonstrate synchronization of extended condensates by controlled tunnel coupling 13,14 and localization of condensates in a trap with optically controlled dimensions.Modern semiconductor technology allows the realization of nanostructures where both electronic and photonic states undergo quantum confinement. In particular in semiconductor microcavities, excitons confined in quantum wells and photons confined in a Fabry-Perot resonator can enter the light-matter strong coupling regime. This gives rise to the formation of cavity polaritons, mixed exciton-photon states that obey bosonic statistics 2 . The polariton dispersion presents a sharp energy minimum close to the states with zero in-plane wave vector (k = 0) with an effective mass m * three orders of magnitude smaller than that of the bare quantum well exciton. Recently, polariton Bose-Einstein condensation 3-10 (BEC) and related effects such as vortices 15,16 or superfluid 17-19 behaviour have been reported at unprecedented high temperatures. As a result of their finite lifetime, cavity polaritons are a model system to investigate dynamical BEC (refs 20,21), also referred to as a polariton laser effect, with a technological control of the resonator geometry and the polariton lifetime. In previously reported polariton laser systems, the cavity lifetime and the photonic disorder prevented the build-up of extended condensates needed for the realization of polariton circuits 22,23 . The measured coherence length ranged at best from 10 to 20 µm (refs 4,6,11,24), a few times the polariton thermal de Broglie wavelength.Here, we report on the spontaneous formation of extended polariton condensates with a spatial coherence extending over 50 times the thermal de Broglie wavelength. These condensates, made of a quantum degenerated light-matter state, are strongly out of equilibrium, thus deeply differing from atomic BEC. Spatial control of such extended condensates is demonstrated, opening the way to a new range of physic...

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Spontaneous formation and optical manipulation of extended polariton condensates

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“…The mixed light-matter nature of such particles confers them favourable properties in view of Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) at high temperature: the photonic component provides a light mass (10 À 4 times the free electron mass) while the excitonic part allows for polariton interactions 7 . The recent experimental demonstration of polariton BEC in many different experimental configurations [7][8][9][10][11] , followed by the observation of polariton superfluidity 12,13 , has initiated the fascinating field of polariton quantum hydrodynamics. Particular attention has been devoted to the investigation of vortex excitations, both in the case of resonantly driven hydrodynamic experiments 14,15 and nonresonant 16,17 optical pumping.…”

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Dissociation dynamics of singly charged vortices into half-quantum vortex pairs

et al. 2012

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The quest for identification and understanding of fractional vorticity is a major subject of research in the quantum fluids domain, ranging from superconductors, superfluid Helium-3 to cold atoms. In a two-dimensional Bose degenerate gas with a spin degree of freedom, the fundamental topological excitations are fractional vortical entities, called half-quantum vortices. Convincing evidence for the existence of half-quantum vortices was recently provided in spinor polariton condensates. The half-quantum vortices can be regarded as the fundamental structural components of singly charged vortices but, so far, no experimental evidence of this relation has been provided. Here we report on the direct and time-resolved observation of the dynamical process of the dissociation of a singly charged vortex into its primary components, a pair of half-quantum vortices. The physical origin of the observed phenomenology is found in a spatially inhomogeneous static potential that couples the two spin components of the condensate.

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“…Polaritons are also ultra-light quasiparticles that are known to condense in systems composed of a semiconducting quantum well sandwiched between two reflective mirrors. [2][3][4][5][6] In this case, however, the polaritons act as hard-core Bosons and scattering at high density allows for a rapid thermalization of the gas.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…In the experiments by Snoke and co-workers, 6,7 translational symmetry is broken by putting a local strain on the cavity. It has also been argued that the finite size of the pumping laser is sufficient to break the 2D translational symmetry.…”

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confidence: 99%

Estimating the conditions for polariton condensation in organic thin-film microcavities

Bittner

Silva

2012

The Journal of Chemical Physics

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We examine the possibility of observing Bose condensation of a confined two-dimensional polariton gas in an organic quantum well. We deduce a suitable parameterization of a model Hamiltonian based upon the cavity geometry, the biexciton binding energy, and similar spectroscopic and structural data. By converting the sum-over-states to a semiclassical integration over d-dimensional phase space, we show that while an ideal 2-D Bose gas will not undergo condensation, an interacting gas with the Bogoliubov dispersion H(p) ≈ sp close to p = 0 will undergo Bose condensation at a given critical density and temperature. We show that Tc/ √ ρc is sensitive to both the cavity geometry and to the biexciton binding energy. In particular, for strongly bound biexcitons, the non-linear interaction term appearing in the Gross-Pitaevskii equation becomes negative and the resulting ground state will be a localized soliton state rather than a delocalized Bose condensate.

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Bose-Einstein Condensation of Microcavity Polaritons in a Trap

Cited by 1,187 publications

References 33 publications

Spontaneous formation and optical manipulation of extended polariton condensates

Spontaneous formation and optical manipulation of extended polariton condensates

Dissociation dynamics of singly charged vortices into half-quantum vortex pairs

Estimating the conditions for polariton condensation in organic thin-film microcavities

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