Spanning the full Poincar\'e sphere with polariton Rabi oscillations

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method to generate light pulses with polarization states that dynamically cover the entire Poincaré sphere using polariton Rabi oscillations, enabling advanced control of light polarization.

Contribution

The work demonstrates both theoretically and experimentally a novel technique for full polarization sphere coverage with tunable speed and duration based on polariton Rabi oscillations.

Findings

Achieved polarization coverage of the full Poincaré sphere.

Controlled the swirling speed and duration of polarization variation.

Demonstrated the scheme's universality and potential for technological applications.

Abstract

We propose theoretically and demonstrate experimentally a generation of light pulses whose polarization varies temporally to cover selected areas of the Poincar\'e sphere with tunable swirling speed and total duration (1 ps and 10 ps respectively in our implementation). The effect relies on the Rabi oscillations of two polarized fields in the strong coupling regime, excited by two counter-polarized and delayed pulses. The interferences of the oscillating fields result in the precession of the Stokes vector of the emitted light while polariton lifetime imbalance results in its drift from a circle on the sphere of controllable radius to a single point at long times. The positioning of the initial and final states allows to engineer the type of polarization spanning, including a full sweeping of the Poincar\'e sphere. The universality and simplicity of the scheme should allow for the deployment of time varying polarization fields at a technologically exploitable level.