Magnetic-field enhancement of the exciton-polariton splitting in a semiconductor quantum-well microcavity: The strong coupling threshold

Quantum control of polariton emission in a microcavity-quantum well system under magnetic field

In this work, a quantum dissipative model is employed to investigate the influence of a perpendicular magnetic field on the photoluminescence (PL) spectrum of a quantum well embedded within a microcavity. This model incorporates both the exact electron-hole interaction within the semiconductor and the light-matter coupling between the fundamental photonic mode and the fermionic particles. The loss and pumping mechanisms are described using the quantum master equation, and the PL spectrum is determined via the quantum regression theorem. Our findings demonstrate that the magnetic field acts as a control mechanism in the polariton emission energy, the emission linewidth and the intensity distribution along the emission line. Finally, it is observed that the magnetic field can redistribute the density matrix occupations leading to modifications in the average number of polaritons in the system.

Experimental Verification of the Very Strong Coupling Regime in a GaAs Quantum Well Microcavity

The dipole coupling strength g between cavity photons and quantum well excitons determines the regime of light matter coupling in quantum well microcavities. In the strong coupling regime, a reversible energy transfer between exciton and cavity photon takes place, which leads to the formation of hybrid polaritonic resonances. If the coupling is further increased, a hybridization of different single exciton states emerges, which is referred to as the very strong coupling regime. In semiconductor quantum wells such a regime is predicted to manifest as a photon-mediated electron-hole coupling leading to different excitonic wave functions for the two polaritonic branches when the ratio of the coupling strength to exciton binding energy g/E_{B} approaches unity. Here, we verify experimentally the existence of this regime in magneto-optical measurements on a microcavity characterized by g/E_{B}≈0.64, showing that the average electron-hole separation of the upper polariton is significantly increased compared to the bare quantum well exciton Bohr radius. This yields a diamagnetic shift around 0 detuning that exceeds the shift of the lower polariton by 1 order of magnitude and the bare quantum well exciton diamagnetic shift by a factor of 2. The lower polariton exhibits a diamagnetic shift smaller than expected from the coupling of a rigid exciton to the cavity mode, which suggests more tightly bound electron-hole pairs than in the bare quantum well.

Lasing in Bose-Fermi mixtures

Light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, well-known for revolutionising photonic science, has been realised primarily in fermionic systems including widely applied diode lasers. The prerequisite for fermionic lasing is the inversion of electronic population, which governs the lasing threshold. More recently, bosonic lasers have also been developed based on Bose-Einstein condensates of exciton-polaritons in semiconductor microcavities. These electrically neutral bosons coexist with charged electrons and holes. In the presence of magnetic fields, the charged particles are bound to their cyclotron orbits, while the neutral exciton-polaritons move freely. We demonstrate how magnetic fields affect dramatically the phase diagram of mixed Bose-Fermi systems, switching between fermionic lasing, incoherent emission and bosonic lasing regimes in planar and pillar microcavities with optical and electrical pumping. We collected and analyzed the data taken on pillar and planar microcavity structures at continuous wave and pulsed optical excitation as well as injecting electrons and holes electronically. Our results evidence the transition from a Bose gas to a Fermi liquid mediated by magnetic fields and light-matter coupling.

Exciton-photon correlations in bosonic condensates of exciton-polaritons

Exciton-polaritons are mixed light-matter quasiparticles. We have developed a statistical model describing stochastic exciton-photon transitions within a condensate of exciton polaritons. We show that the exciton-photon correlator depends on the rate of incoherent exciton-photon transformations in the condensate. We discuss implications of this effect for the quantum statistics of photons emitted by polariton lasers.

Temperature dependence of the radiative recombination time in ZnO nanorods under an external magnetic field of 6 T

The Temperature dependence of the exciton radiative decay time in ZnO nanorods has been investigated, which is associated with the density of states for the intra-relaxation of thermally excited excitons. The photoluminescence decay time was calibrated by using the photoluminescence intensity in order to obtain the radiative decay time. In the absence of an external magnetic field, we have confirmed that the radiative decay time increased with temperature in a similar manner to that seen in bulk material (∼ T1.5). Under an external magnetic field of 6 T parallel to the c-axis, we found that the power coefficient of the radiative decay time with temperature decreased (∼ T1.3) when compared to that in the absence of a magnetic field. This result can be attributed to an enhancement of the effective mass perpendicular to the magnetic field and a redshift of the center-of-mass exciton as a consequence of perturbation effects in the weak-field regime.

Qubits based on polariton Rabi oscillators

We propose a novel physical mechanism for the creation of long-lived macroscopic exciton-photon qubits in semiconductor microcavities with embedded quantum wells in the strong coupling regime. The polariton qubit is a superposition of lower branch and upper branch exciton-polariton states. We argue that the coherence time of Rabi oscillations can be dramatically enhanced due to their stimulated pumping from a permanent thermal reservoir of polaritons. We discuss applications of such qubits for quantum information processing, cloning, and storage purposes.

Tailoring the ultrafast dephasing of quasiparticles in metallic photonic crystals

The ultrafast dephasing of waveguide-plasmon polaritons in metallic photonic crystal slabs is investigated in the femtosecond regime by second-order nonlinear autocorrelation. We find a drastic modification of the dephasing rates due to interaction between localized particle plasmons and optical waveguide modes and subsequent modification of the photonic density of states. In the strong coupling regime our measurements give clear evidence for the appearance of ultrafast polaritonic beat phenomena. All experimental results agree well with theoretical simulations based on a coupled damped harmonic oscillator model.