Bose-Einstein Condensation of Exciton-Polaritons

D.W. Snoke R. Balili B. Nelson V. Hartwell University of Pittsburgh L. Pfeiffer K. West Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies
Supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grant DMR-0706331.

Outline I. Introduction. What is a polariton? Trapping polaritons Are they really a gas? II. Review of BEC behavior in traps III. Polariton BEC vs. Lasing

What is an exciton-polariton? What is an exciton?

Coulomb attraction between electron and hole gives bound state

net lower energy for pair than for free electron and hole states below single-particle gap Wannier limit: electron and hole form atom like positronium Excitonic Rydberg: Excitonic radius:

Ps = 2

a = aPs

General concepts of excitons

quasi number conservation (Cf. proton decay and H atom BEC)
crossover: quasiequilibrium BEC nonequilibrium BEC immediate decay

photon emission: weak probe of instantaneous energy and momentum distribution

conduction states
incoherent phonon emission

valence states

Cavity Polaritons

DWS and Littlewood, Physics Today, August 2010.

cavity photon:

E = c kz2 + k||2 = c ( / L )2 + k||2

quantum well exciton:

E = Egap bind

h2 N 2 2 k||2 + + 2 2 mr (2 L ) 2m

const. near k||=0

Tune Eex(0) to equal Ephot(0):

cavity photon upper polariton

exciton lower polariton

Mixing leads to upper polariton (UP) and lower polariton (LP)

LP effective mass ~ 10-4 me

Lifetime ~ 10-40 ps

Why do this? Effective mass of excitons ~ 2me

General condition for quantum effects to be important:

= h / 2 mkBT comparable to
2n kBTc ~ 2m
Tc ~ 1 K

rs ~ n-1/2 (in 2D)

for typical exciton densities

Effective mass of cavity polaritons ~ 10-4 me Tc > 100 K for typical polariton densities

Cavity photons alone have this effective mass, but they are non-interacting.
polariton = photon dressed with mass and hard core repulsion

How to put a force on polaritons? hydrostatic deformation:

h2 E= 2m2 hydrostatic compression = higher energy

shear deformation: E
symmetry change state splitting

Trapping Polaritons
Bending free-standing sample gives hydrostatic expansion:

nite-element analysis of stress

fit to experimental exciton line position using known deformation potentials:

x (mm)

hydrostatic strain shear strain

Excitons moving inside a semiconductor structure

Energy

position
GaAs coupled quantum wells Lifetime ~ 10 s

Trapping Polaritons
Bending free-standing sample gives hydrostatic expansion:

strain (arb. units)

Typical wafer properties

Wedge in the layer thickness Cavity photon shifts in energy due layer thickness

GaAs MBE 70- QWs

Reflectivity spectrum around point of strong coupling

Trapping as stress is increased

false color: luminescence grayscale: reectivity

increasing stress trap

Balili et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 88, 031110 (2006).

Do the polaritons really move? Drift and trapping of polaritons in trap Images of polariton luminescence as laser spot is moved
40 m

1.608 Energy [meV] 1.606 1.604 1.602 1.600

II. Review of Bose Condensation Effects

General condition for exchange to be important:

= h / 2 mkBT ,

rs ~ n-1/2 (in 2D)

superuid at low T or high density trap implies spatial condensation

log T

normal superfluid

excited thermal particles

log n

Threshold behavior with incoherent pump:

Luminescence intensity at k|| =0 vs. pump power

Pump: 115 meV excess energy circular polarized E

electron-hole continuum

k
exciton states

Spatial profiles of polariton luminescence

Unstressed-- weakly coupled

Angle-resolved data

Weakly stressed

Resonant-- strongly coupled

Angle-resolved luminescence spectra

50 W 400 W

600 W

800 W

x p

R. Balili et al., Science 316, 1007 (2007)

Momentum distribution of polaritons

0.4 mW 0.6 mW 0.8 mW

MaxwellBoltzmann fit Ae-E/kBT

Energy distribution of polaritons

R. Balili et al., Science 316, 1007 (2007)

Kinetic simulations of polariton equilibration

Tassone,etal,PhysRevB56,7554(1997). TassoneandYamamoto,PhysRevB59,10830(1999). Porrasetal.,Phys.Rev.B66,085304(2002). Haugetal.,PhysRevB72,085301(2005). SarchiandSavona,SolidStateComm144,371(2007).

n(k1 ) 2 = t

k 2 k1'

M (| k1 k1' |)n(k1 )n(k 2 )[1 + n(k1' )][1 + n(k 2 ' )] ( E1 + E2 E1' E2 ' )
2

Include polariton-phonon, polariton-electron, and polaritonpolariton scattering. Our approach: Treat entire lower band (polariton exciton) as continuum. Iterate time-resolved equations until equilibrium.

phonon scattering totally inadequate to populate polariton states.

Simulated Occupation

Cavity lifetime = 5 ps Lattice Temperature = 20 K

Polariton-phonon scattering only Polariton-polariton scattering without Bose terms and full polariton-phonon scattering Full polariton-polariton scattering and full polariton-phonon scattering 100

10

0.1

0.01

0.001 0 2 4 6 8 10 12

E-Emin (meV)

V. Hartwell, Ph.D. thesis (2008)

Fits to data for different densities, same scattering cross section

V. Hartwell and DWS, PRB 82, 075307 (2010).

Other recent experiments:

vortices superfluid soliton motion, suppression of scattering spontaneous symmetry breaking (polarization) first- and second-order coherence spatial phase locking onset time of coherence BEC in microtraps with discrete states Bogoliubov linear branches Polariton superfluidity in wires (recent)

...applications in optical communications (nonlinear modulation, low-threshold lasing, cw OPO, optical spin-Hall effect, etc.) ... room temperature polaritons possible with organics, GaN

Spin vortices: microcavity polaritons are a spin-1, two-state system

Y.G. Rubo, PRL 99, 106401 (2007)

Lagoudakis et al., Science 326, 974 (2009)

2D bosons with two states

Splitting of bright exciton states seen in microcavity different linear polarization due to anisotropic exchange splitting of exciton states

theory with Pikus-Bir, anisotropic exchange

III. Is there a difference between polariton BEC and lasing? coherent light emitted spectral narrowing linear polarization beamlike emission
(Is current emitted from a superconductor different? output = probe of state of matter)

phase space filling weak coupling

conduction band

lasing
valence band
A

normal laser

lasing without inversion

stimulated scattering

stimulated emission

radiative coupling
(oscillators can be isolated)

exciton-exciton interaction coupling

(inversion can be negligible)

Spatially-resolved spectra
laser spot center

Stress trap, resonant

Angle-resolved spectra

Stress trap, resonant

Angle-resolved spectrum

Unstressed, resonant

Coherent emission shifted by stress

line position vs. stress

coherent emission follows exciton shift, not cavity photon: exciton states still coupled to photons
DWS and Littlewood, Physics Today, August 2010.

purple diamonds: 2.5x threshold

Recent: Josephson Junctions of Polariton Condensates CdTe: adjacent traps in disordered potential

spatial resolution: no optical interference

Lagoudakis et al, PRL 105, 120403 (2010)

Recent: Josephson Junctions of Polariton Condensates phase winding

Lagoudakis et al, PRL 105, 120403 (2010)

Recent: Josephson Junctions of Polariton Condensates GaAs: traps in micropillars

Lydie Ferrier, Alberto Amo, Jacqueline Bloch (CNRS), in preparation.

Conclusions 1. Cavity polaritons really do move from place to place and act as a gas, and can be trapped 2. Multiple evidences of Bose-Einstein condensation
of exciton-polaritons in a trap in two dimensions 3. Two transitions occur in same sample: BEC in strong coupling regime, and lasing in weak coupling 4. Many new experiments including Josephson junctions which show unique BEC effects

Botao Zhang

Vince Hartwell Bryan Nelson Chuan Yang

Jeff Wuenschell Zoltan Vrs

Annie Wang Nick Sinclair Bridget Bertoni David Snoke Ryan Balili

Now on sale...
1. Electron bands molecular bonding, disorder, k.p theory 2. Semiconductors band bending, interfaces, excitons, 2DEG 3. Classical waves in anisotropic materials 4. Phonons and photons in solids second quantization 5. Particle interactions in solids electron-phonon, electron-photon, etc. 6. Introduction to group theory selection rules, splitting on change of symmetry 7. Optics complex dielectric function, polaritons, nonlinear optics 8. Introduction to many-body theory band-gap renormalization, plasmons, density functional theory 9. Coherence and Correlation T1 and T2 times, dephasing, Berrys phase 10. Spin and magnetic systems Ising model, spin flip processes 11. Condensates, Superconductors, and Lasers