• Krizhanovskii, D. N.
• Gorbach, Andrey
• Biermann, K.
• Cerda-Mendez, E. A.
• Hartley, Robin
• Sich, M.
• Hey, R.
• Slolnick, M. S.
• Skryabin, Dmitry
• Santos, P. V.

Abstract

Microcavitypolaritonsarecompositehalf-lighthalf-matterquasiparticles,whichhaverecentlybeendemonstratedto exhibit rich physical properties, such as non-equilibrium condensation, parametric scattering and superfluidity. At the sametime,polaritonshaveimportantadvantagesoverphotonsforinformationprocessing,becausetheirexcitonic component leads to weaker diffraction and stronger interparticle interactions, implying, respectively, tighter localization and lower powers for nonlinear functionality. Here, we present the first experimental observations of bright polariton solitonsinastronglycoupledsemiconductormicrocavity.Thepolaritonsolitonsareshowntobemicrometre-scale localized non-diffracting wave packets with a corresponding broadspectrumin momentum space.Unlike the solitons known in Bose condensed atomic gases, they are non-equilibrium and rely on a balance between losses and external pumping.Microcavitypolaritonsolitonsareexcitedonpicosecondtimescales,andthushavefurtherbenefitsfor information processing over light-only solitons in semiconductor cavity lasers, which have nanosecond response times.

Topics

• semiconductor