The low sensitivity of photons to external magnetic fields is one of the major challenges for the engineering of photonic lattices with broken time-reversal symmetry. Here we show that time-reversal symmetry can be broken for microcavity polaritons in the absence of any external magnetic field thanks to polarization dependent polariton interactions. Circularly polarized excitation of carriers in a micropillar induces a Zeeman-like energy splitting between polaritons of opposite polarizations. In combination with optical spin-orbit coupling inherent to semiconductor microstructures, the interaction induced Zeeman splitting results in emission of vortical beams with a well-defined chirality. Our experimental findings can be extended to lattices of coupled micropillars opening the possibility of controling optically the topological properties of polariton Chern insulators.
In the present paper, we propose a new way to classify centrosymmetric metals by studying the Zeeman effect caused by an external magnetic field described by the momentum dependent g-factor tensor on the Fermi surfaces. Nontrivial U(1) Berrys phase and curvature can be generated once the otherwise degenerate Fermi surfaces are splitted by the Zeeman effect, which will be determined by both the intrinsic band structure and the structure of g-factor tensor on the manifold of the Fermi surfaces. Such Zeeman effect generated Berrys phase and curvature can lead to three important experimental effects, modification of spin-zero effect, Zeeman effect induced Fermi surface Chern number and the in-plane anomalous Hall effect. By first principle calculations, we study all these effects on two typical material, ZrTe$_5$ and TaAs$_2$ and the results are in good agreement with the existing experiments.
Experimental results of direct measurement of resonant monochromatic terahertz emission optically excited in InGaAs transistor channels are presented. The emission is attributed to two-dimensional plasma waves excited by photogeneration of electron-hole pairs in the channel at the frequency $f_0$ of the beating of two cw-laser sources. The presence of resonances for the radiation emission in the range of $f_0pm 10$ GHz (with $f_0$ from 0.3 up to 0.5 THz) detected by a Si-bolometer is found. Numerical results support that such a high quality of the emission resonances can be explained by the approach of an instability in the transistor channel.
Motivated by recent transport experiments, we theoretically study the quantum Hall effect in topological semimetal films. Owing to the confinement effect, the bulk subbands originating from the chiral Landau levels establish energy gaps that have quantized Hall conductance and can be observed in relatively thick films. We find that the quantum Hall state is strongly anisotropic for different confinement directions not only due to the presence of the surface states but also because of the bulk chiral Landau levels. As a result, we re-examine the quantum Hall effect from the surface Fermi arcs and chiral modes in Weyl semimetals and give a more general view into this problem. Besides, we also find that when a topological Dirac semimetal is confined in its rotational symmetry axis, it hosts both quantum Hall and quantum spin Hall states, in which the helical edge states are protected by the conservation of the spin-$z$ component.
The phase and the frequency of an exciton polariton condensate excited by a nonresonant pump can be efficiently manipulated by an external coherent light. Being tuned close to the resonance with the condensate eigenfrequency, the external laser light imposes its frequency to the condensate and locks its phase, thereby manifesting a synchronization effect. The conditions of formation of the phase synchronized regime are determined. The synchronization of a couple of closely spaced polariton condensates by a spatially uniform coherent light is examined. At the moderate strength of the coherent driving the synchronization is accompanied by the appearance of symmetry-breaking states of the polariton dyad, while these states are superseded by the symmetric state at the high-intensity driving. By employing a zero-dimensional model of coupled dissipative oscillators with both dissipative and conservative coupling, we study the bifurcation scenario of the symmetry-breaking state formation.
One of the consequences of Cooper pairs having a finite momentum in the interlayer of a Josephson junction, is $pi$-junction behavior. The finite momentum can either be due to an exchange field in ferromagnetic Josephson junctions, or due to the Zeeman effect. Here, we report the observation of Zeeman effect induced 0-$pi$ transitions in Bi$_{1-x}$Sb$_x$, 3D Dirac semimetal-based Josephson junctions. The large g-factor of the Zeeman effect from a magnetic field applied in the plane of the junction allows tuning of the Josephson junctions from 0- to $pi$- regimes. This is revealed by sign changes in the modulation of the critical current by applied magnetic field of an asymmetric superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID). Additionally, we directly measure a non-sinusoidal current-phase relation in the asymmetric SQUID, consistent with models for ballistic Josephson transport.