Dark polariton solitons in semiconductor microcavities

Abstract

We report the existence of dark polariton solitons and study their stability and symmetry breaking in semiconductor microcavities operating in the strong-coupling regime. These half-light half-matter solitons are potential candidates for applications in all-optical signal processing. Their excitation time and required pump powers are a few orders of magnitude less than those of their weakly coupled light-only counterparts.

Dynamics and stability of dark solitons in exciton-polariton condensates

“…1). So far, dark solitons and their dynamics have been observed [13][14][15][16] and analysed 17,18 mostly in the polariton condensates coherently and resonantly driven by a pumping laser. Formation and behaviour of dark solitons in an incoherently pumped polariton condesate with a spontaneously established coherence, is much less understood.…”

Dark solitons and vortices in the intrinsic bistability regime in exciton polariton condensates

“…At the same time, due to their excitonic component, microcavity polaritons interact much stronger than pure photons in typical photonic setups, and thus represent a competitive and promising platform for ultrafast signal processing applications. Indeed, a range of fundamental nonlinear effects has been investigated with microcavity polaritons, including low threshold bistability [7,8], polarization multi-stability and switching [9][10][11], parametric scattering and pattern formation [12][13][14][15][16], excitation of dark- [17][18][19][20][21] and brigth solitons [22][23][24][25][26][27][28].…”

“…The two factors jointly ensure stability of a high amplitude background, which forms the tails of a dark soliton [18]. In planar systems, such as polariton microcavities, these conditions also favor formation of vortices, and the two types of solutionsdark solitons and vortices, often coexist [29].…”

Cavity Solitons in VCSEL Devices

“…Dark polariton solitons were first predicted to appear [171] in a cavity sustaining exciton polaritons, when the lower polariton branch is excited at normal incidence. The fact that bright CS polaritons were found to be unstable in that case is related to the defocusing nature of the excitonpolariton nonlinearity.…”