Accelerating Polaritons with External Electric and Magnetic Fields

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that polaritons can be accelerated using external electric and magnetic fields through their coupling with itinerant electrons, leading to new quasiparticles called polaron-polaritons, and reveals polarization-dependent acceleration effects.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of polariton acceleration via external fields in the presence of electron coupling, forming polaron-polaritons, a novel approach in polariton manipulation.

Findings

Polaritons can be accelerated by external electric and magnetic fields.

Electron density gradients induce polariton energy gradients causing acceleration.

Polarization components of polaritons can be accelerated in opposite directions in quantum Hall states.

Abstract

It is widely assumed that photons cannot be manipulated using electric or magnetic fields. Even though hybridization of photons with electronic polarization to form exciton-polaritons has paved the way to a number of ground-breaking experiments in semiconductor microcavities, the neutral bosonic nature of these quasiparticles has severely limited their response to external gauge fields. Here, we demonstrate polariton acceleration by external electric and magnetic fields in the presence of nonperturbative coupling between polaritons and itinerant electrons, leading to formation of new quasiparticles termed polaron-polaritons. We identify the generation of electron density gradients by the applied fields to be primarily responsible for inducing a gradient in polariton energy, which in turn leads to acceleration along a direction determined by the applied fields. Remarkably, we also observe that different polarization components of the polaritons can be accelerated in opposite directions when the electrons are in $\nu = 1$ integer quantum Hall state.