We investigate the propagation and scattering of polaritons in a planar GaAs microcavity in the linear regime under resonant excitation. The propagation of the coherent polariton wave across an extended defect creates phase and intensity patterns wit
h identical qualitative features previously attributed to dark and half-dark solitons of polaritons. We demonstrate that these features are observed for negligible nonlinearity (i.e., polariton-polariton interaction) and are, therefore, not sufficient to identify dark and half-dark solitons. A linear model based on the Maxwell equations is shown to reproduce the experimental observations.
Magnetic linear dichroism and birefringence in (Ga,Mn)As epitaxial layers is investigated by measuring the polarization plane rotation of reflected linearly polarized light when magnetization lies in the plane of the sample. We report on the spectral
dependence of the rotation and ellipticity angles in a broad energy range of 0.12-2.7 eV for a series of optimized samples covering a wide range on Mn-dopings and Curie temperatures and find a clear blue shift of the dominant peak at energy exceeding the host material band gap. These results are discussed in the general context of the GaAs host band structure and also within the framework of the k.p and mean-field kinetic-exchange model of the (Ga,Mn)As band structure. We find a semi-quantitative agreement between experiment and theory and discuss the role of disorder-induced non-direct transitions on magneto-optical properties of (Ga,Mn)As.
Singly quantized vortices have been already observed in many systems including the superfluid helium, Bose Einstein condensates of dilute atomic gases, and condensates of exciton polaritons in the solid state. Two dimensional superfluids carrying spi
n are expected to demonstrate a different type of elementary excitations referred to as half quantum vortices characterized by a pi rotation of the phase and a pi rotation of the polarization vector when circumventing the vortex core. We detect half quantum vortices in an exciton-polariton condensate by means of polarization resolved interferometry, real space spectroscopy and phase imaging. Half quantum vortices coexist with single quantum vortices in our sample.
