Topological Polaritons and Excitons in Garden Variety Systems

TL;DR

This paper proposes a practical method to realize topological polaritons in common zinc-blende quantum wells using moderate magnetic fields and potential landscapes, enabling exploration of topological states in solid-state systems.

Contribution

It introduces a feasible scheme for creating topolaritons in standard quantum wells and highlights indirect excitons as a promising platform for topological excitonic states.

Findings

Proposed a scheme for topolariton realization in zinc-blende quantum wells.

Identified indirect excitons as a robust platform for topological excitonic states.

Suggested practical implementations using surface acoustic waves or patterning.

Abstract

Topological polaritons (aka topolaritons) present a new frontier for topological behavior in solid-state systems. They combine light and matter, which allows to probe and manipulate them in a variety of ways. They can also be made strongly interacting, due to their excitonic component. So far, however, their realization was deemed rather challenging. Here we present a scheme which allows to realize topolaritons in garden variety zinc-blende quantum wells. Our proposal requires a moderate magnetic field and a potential landscape which can be implemented, e.g., via surface acoustic waves or patterning. We identify indirect excitons in double quantum wells as a particularly appealing alternative for topological states in exciton-based systems. Indirect excitons are robust and long lived (with lifetimes up to milliseconds), and, therefore, provide a flexible platform for the realization, probing, and utilization of topological coupled light-matter states.