Stochastic and deterministic switches in a bistable polariton micropillar under short optical pulses

TL;DR

This paper investigates how short optical pulses can switch the states of exciton polaritons in microcavities, revealing conditions for deterministic and stochastic switching useful for optical devices and random number generation.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of polariton switching behavior under various pulse parameters, highlighting the impact of pulse duration and detuning on system dynamics.

Findings

Switching can occur in tens of picoseconds with appropriate pulses.

Large detuning leads to high sensitivity and stochastic behavior.

System can be used as a fast random-number generator.

Abstract

Optical bistability of exciton polaritons in semiconductor microcavities is a promising platform for digital optical devices. Steady states of coherently driven polaritons can be toggled in tens of picoseconds by a short external pulse of appropriate amplitude and phase. We have analyzed the switching behavior of polaritons depending on the pulse amplitude, phase, and duration. The switches are found to change dramatically when the inverse pulse duration becomes comparable to the frequency detuning between the driving field and polariton resonance. If the detuning is large compared to the polariton linewidth, the system becomes extremely sensitive to initial conditions and thus can serve as a fast random-number generator.