Light Engineering of the Polariton Landscape in Semiconductor Microcavities

TL;DR

This paper presents a technique to engineer potential barriers for polaritons in semiconductor microcavities using polarized light, enabling dynamic and customizable potential landscapes for polariton control.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel method to create and shape potential barriers with polarized light in microcavities, allowing for dynamic manipulation of polariton landscapes.

Findings

Potential barriers can be precisely shaped via the real space profile of a focused beam.

Barrier height is controllable through the scattering wave visibility.

The method enables creation of dynamic and arbitrary potential landscapes.

Abstract

We demonstrate a method to create potential barriers with polarized light beams for polaritons in semiconductor microcavities. The form of the barriers is engineered via the real space shape of a focalised beam on the sample. Their height can be determined by the visibility of the scattering waves generated in a polariton fluid interacting with them. This technique opens up the way to the creation of dynamical potentials and defects of any shape in semiconductor microcavities.