Interactive optomechanical coupling with nonlinear polaritonic systems

TL;DR

This paper explores a novel interactive optomechanical coupling in polaritonic systems, revealing how mechanical modes influence nonlinear optical properties and enable the formation of bright solitons in polariton condensates.

Contribution

It introduces a new form of optomechanical coupling mediated by polaritons, leading to high-order optical nonlinearities surpassing traditional Kerr effects.

Findings

Interactive coupling generates high-order nonlinear terms.

Effective nonlinearity can exceed Kerr nonlinearities.

Bright flat top solitons can form spontaneously.

Abstract

We study a system of interacting matter quasiparticles strongly coupled to photons inside an optomechanical cavity. The resulting normal modes of the system are represented by hybrid polaritonic quasiparticles, which acquire effective nonlinearity. Its strength is influenced by the presence of the mechanical mode and depends on the resonance frequency of the cavity. This leads to an interactive type of optomechanical coupling, being distinct from the previously studied dispersive and dissipative couplings in optomechanical systems. The emergent interactive coupling is shown to generate effective optical nonlinearity terms of high order, being quartic in the polariton number. We consider particular systems of exciton-polaritons and dipolaritons, and show that the induced effective optical nonlinearity due to the interactive coupling can exceed in magnitude the strength of Kerr nonlinear terms, such as those arising from polariton-polariton interactions. As applications, we show that the higher order terms give rise to localized bright flat top solitons, which may form spontaneously in polariton condensates.