Polariton lattice condensates provide a platform for on chip quantum emulations. Interactions in extended polariton lattices are currently limited by the intrinsic photonic disorder of microcavities. Here, we fabricate a strain compensated planar GaAs/AlAs microcavity with embedded InGaAs quantum wells and report on polariton condensation under non-resonant optical excitation. Evidence of polariton condensation is supported spectroscopically both in reflection and transmission geometry, whilst the observation of a second threshold to photon lasing allows us to conclusively distinguish between the strong- and weak-coupling non-linear regimes.
We designed and performed low temperature DC transport characterization studies on two-dimensional electron gases confined in lattice-matched In$_{0.53}$Ga$_{0.47}$As/In$_{0.52}$Al$_{0.48}$As quantum wells grown by molecular beam epitaxy on InP substrates. The nearly constant mobility for samples with the setback distance larger than 50nm and the similarity between the quantum and transport life-time suggest that the main scattering mechanism is due to short range scattering, such as alloy scattering, with a scattering rate of 2.2 ps$^{-1}$. We also obtain the Fermi level at the In$_{0.53}$Ga$_{0.47}$As/In$_{0.52}$Al$_{0.48}$As surface to be 0.36eV above the conduction band, when fitting our experimental densities with a Poisson-Schrodinger model.
Photoluminescence (PL) and reflectivity spectra of a high-quality InGaAs/GaAs quantum well structure reveal a series of ultra-narrow peaks attributed to the quantum confined exciton states. The intensity of these peaks decreases as a function of temperature, while the linewidths demonstrate a complex and peculiar behavior. At low pumping the widths of all peaks remain quite narrow ($< 0.1$ meV) in the whole temperature range studied, $4 - 30K$. At the stronger pumping, the linewidth first increases and than drops down with the temperature rise. Pump-probe experiments show two characteristic time scales in the exciton decay, $< 10$ps and $15 - 45ns$, respectively. We interpret all these data by an interplay between the exciton recombination within the light cone, the exciton relaxation from a non-radiative reservoir to the light cone, and the thermal dissociation of the non-radiative excitons. The broadening of the low energy exciton lines is governed by the radiative recombination and scattering with reservoir excitons while for the higher energy states the linewidths are also dependent on the acoustic phonon relaxation processes.
We present a microcavity structure with a shifted photonic stop-band to enable efficient non-resonant injection of a polariton condensate with spectrally broad femtosecond pulses. The concept is demonstrated theoretically and confirmed experimentally for a planar GaAs/AlGaAs multilayer heterostructure pumped with ultrashort near-infrared pulses while photoluminescence is collected to monitor the optically injected polariton density. As the excitation wavelength is scanned, a regime of polariton condensation can be reached in our structure at a consistently lower fluence threshold than in a state-of-the-art conventional microcavity. Our microcavity design improves the polariton injection efficiency by a factor of 4, as compared to a conventional microcavity design, when broad excitation pulses are centered at a wavelength of 740 nm. Most remarkably, this improvement factor reaches 270 when the excitation wavelength is centered at 750 nm.
Quantum wells (QWs) based on mercury telluride (HgTe) thin films provide a large scale of unusual physical properties starting from an insulator via a two-dimensional Dirac semimetal to a three-dimensional topological insulator. These properties result from the dramatic change of the QW band structure with the HgTe film thickness. Although being a key property, these energy dispersion relations cannot be reflected in experiments due to the lack of appropriate tools. Here we report an experimental and theoretical study of two HgTe quantum wells with inverted energy spectrum in which two-dimensional semimetallic states are realized. Using magneto-optical spectroscopy at sub-THz frequencies we were able to obtain information about electron and hole cyclotron masses at all relevant Fermi level positions and different charge densities. The outcome is also supported by a Shubnikov-de Haas analysis of capacitance measurements, which allows obtaining information about the degeneracy of the active modes. From these data, it is possible to reconstruct electron and hole dispersion relations. Detailed comparative analysis of the energy dispersion relations with theoretical calculations demonstrates a good agreement, reflecting even several subtle features like band splitting, the second conduction band, and the overlaps between the first conduction and first valence band. Our study demonstrates that the cyclotron resonance experiments can be efficiently used to directly obtain the band structures of semimetallic 2D materials.
Modulational instabilities play a key role in a wide range of nonlinear optical phenomena, leading e.g. to the formation of spatial and temporal solitons, rogue waves and chaotic dynamics. Here we experimentally demonstrate the existence of a modulational instability in condensates of cavity polaritons, arising from the strong coupling of cavity photons with quantum well excitons. For this purpose we investigate the spatiotemporal coherence properties of polariton condensates in GaAs-based microcavities under continuous-wave pumping. The chaotic behavior of the instability results in a strongly reduced spatial and temporal coherence and a significantly inhomogeneous density. Additionally we show how the instability can be tamed by introducing a periodic potential so that condensation occurs into negative mass states, leading to largely improved coherence and homogeneity. These results pave the way to the exploration of long-range order in dissipative quantum fluids of light within a controlled platform.