Polariton Condensation in an optically induced 2D potentia

TL;DR

This paper reports the experimental demonstration of exciton-polariton condensation in a 2D optical trap, showing how spatially decoupled condensates form at lower densities with less dephasing.

Contribution

It introduces a novel optical trapping method to achieve polariton condensation with reduced decoherence, advancing control over polariton condensates.

Findings

Confined polariton condensate forms in a 2D optical trap.

Condensation occurs at lower excitation densities with trapping.

Trapped condensates are spatially decoupled from the reservoir.

Abstract

We demonstrate experimentally the condensation of exciton-polaritons through optical trapping. The non-resonant pump profile is shaped into a ring and projected to a high quality factor microcavity where it forms a 2D repulsive optical potential originating from the interactions of polaritons with the excitonic reservoir. Increasing the population of particles in the trap eventually leads to the emergence of a confined polariton condensate that is spatially decoupled from the decoherence inducing reservoir, before any build up of coherence on the excitation region. In a reference experiment, where the trapping mechanism is switched off by changing the excitation intensity profile, polariton condensation takes place for excitation densities more than two times higher and the resulting condensate is subject to a much stronger dephasing and depletion processes.