Effects of fermion exchanges on the polarization of exciton condensates

TL;DR

This paper investigates how fermion exchange processes influence the polarization states of exciton condensates, revealing a potential switch from unpolarized to fully polarized states depending on layer separation.

Contribution

It demonstrates that including spin degrees of freedom in fermion exchange processes can cause a spin-fragmentation and polarization switching in exciton condensates.

Findings

Fermion exchanges can induce spin-fragmentation in dark exciton condensates.

The condensate polarization can switch from unpolarized to fully polarized.

The threshold for polarization switching matches current experimental regimes.

Abstract

Exchange processes are responsible for the stability of elementary boson condensates with respect to their possible fragmentation. This remains true for composite bosons when single fermion exchanges are included but spin degrees of freedom are ignored. We here show that their inclusion can produce a "spin-fragmentation" of a condensate of dark excitons, i.e., an unpolarized condensate with equal amount of dark excitons with spins (+2) and (-2). Quite surprisingly, for spatially indirect excitons of semiconductor bilayers, we predict that the condensate polarization can switch from unpolarized to fully polarized, depending on the distance between the layers confining electrons and holes. Remarkably, the threshold distance associated to this switching lies in the regime where experiments are nowadays carried out.