Electrical and optical switching in the bistable regime of an electrically injected polariton laser

Abstract

We report on electrically and non-resonant optically induced switching in the bistable regime of an electrically pumped polariton laser. Electrical switching effects can be observed by adding controlled noise in the electrical pump of the system. Noise is expected to influence the hysteresis characteristics of a bistable device and determines its application robustness. We find that the hysteresis width decreases symmetrically with a linear dependency until we observe a quenching of the bistability at a certain noise level and the output of the system becomes monostable. Furthermore, we explore the possibility to switch between the two bistable branches by a non-resonant optical pulse. Our experimental findings can be described by a set of rate equations modeling the population dynamics with additional noise terms.

Room temperature long-range coherent exciton polariton condensate flow in lead halide perovskites

“…In particular, 1D quantum wire microcavities hosting polaritons with high group velocity are of profound interest and importance. They hold significant promise toward the development of optical information processing elements, including all-optical switches ( 17 , 18 ), transistors ( 19 ), diodes ( 20 ), and integrated circuits ( 21 , 22 ). Because of the unique symmetry of 1D quantum wire microcavities, polaritons are well confined in two of three dimensions and can only move freely in the longitudinal dimension, providing an ideal platform for all-optical manipulation ( 23 ), amplification ( 24 ), and gating of polariton condensates ( 17 ).…”

Parity bifurcations in trapped multistable phase locked exciton-polariton condensates

“…To date, theoretical schemes for incoherently excited bistability based on strong saturated absorption 31 , thermallyinduced changes 32 , modulational instability 33 , and gain competition between symmetric and antisymmetric condensate modes 34 have been proposed. Fairly recently, nonresonant optical bistability was demonstrated in polariton condensates under electrical injection of charge carriers 35,36 and between spin polarizations in annular pumping geometries 37 .…”

Acoustically Triggered Optical Memories

“…This unique double-OPO feature becomes possible due to the availability of several higher lying polariton branches, when the pump energy is close to the barrier energy. In contrast, when P pump is gradually reduced from the high values we observe a typical hysteretic behavior 22,23 with the transition to the noncondensed regime taking place at an excitation density P ths,down ≈ 100 mW ≈ 1/ 4P ths,up .…”