Resonant intersubband polariton-LO phonon scattering in an optically pumped polaritonic device

TL;DR

This paper provides experimental evidence of resonant intersubband polariton-LO phonon scattering in optically pumped quantum well systems, revealing a distinct microscopic mechanism and advancing the development of intersubband polariton lasers.

Contribution

It demonstrates the first experimental observation of resonant polariton-phonon scattering in quantum wells and elucidates its microscopic mechanism, differing from standard electron-phonon interactions.

Findings

Resonant scattering observed in GaAs/AlGaAs and InGaAs/AlInAs quantum wells.

Scattering process is resonant with both initial and final polariton states.

Distinct from standard single particle electron-LO phonon scattering.

Abstract

We report experimental evidence of longitudinal optical (LO) phonon-intersubband polariton scattering processes under resonant injection of light. The scattering process is resonant with both the initial (upper polariton) and final (lower polariton) states and is induced by the interaction of confined electrons with longitudinal optical phonons. The system is optically pumped with a mid-IR laser tuned between 1094 cm-1 and 1134 cm-1 (lambda=9.14 um and lambda=8.82 um). The demonstration is provided for both GaAs/AlGaAs and InGaAs/AlInAs doped quantum well systems whose intersubband plasmon lies at lambda=10 um wavelength. In addition to elucidating the microscopic mechanism of the polariton-phonon scattering, that is found to differ substantially from the standard single particle electron-LO phonon scattering mechanism, this work constitutes the first step towards the hopefully forthcoming demonstration of an intersubband polariton laser.