All-optical flow control of a polariton condensate using non-resonant excitation

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates an all-optical method to control polariton condensate flow using non-resonant excitation and spatial light modulators, enabling reconfigurable pathways for polariton-based devices.

Contribution

It introduces a novel all-optical technique for steering polariton condensates with shaped potentials created by a spatial light modulator.

Findings

Successful creation of arbitrarily shaped potentials

Guided polariton condensate along reconfigurable pathways

Numerical simulations confirm experimental results

Abstract

The precise adjustment of the polariton condensate flow under incoherent excitation conditions is an indispensable prerequisite for polariton-based logic gate operations. In this report, an all-optical approach for steering the motion of a polariton condensate using only non-resonant excitation is demonstrated. We create arbitrarily shaped functional potentials by means of a spatial light modulator, which allow for tailoring the condensate state and guiding a propagating condensate along reconfigurable pathways. Additional numerical simulations confirm the experimental observations and elucidate the interaction effects between background carriers and polariton condensates.