Spin-Orbit Coupled Exciton-Polariton Condensates in Lead Halide Perovskites

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates photonic analogs of spin-orbit coupling in exciton-polaritons within lead halide perovskite microcavities, revealing phase transitions and potential for quantum simulation of SOC phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces a new platform for studying spin-orbit coupling using exciton-polaritons in lead halide perovskites, combining anisotropy and cavity splitting to emulate non-Abelian gauge fields.

Findings

Observation of non-Abelian gauge fields in polariton systems

Phase transitions to orthogonal polarized condensates with increasing density

Inheritance of nonlinearity from excitonic components enabling quantum simulations

Abstract

Spin-orbit coupling (SOC) is responsible for a range of spintronic and topological processes in condensed matter. Here we show photonic analogs of SOCs in exciton-polaritons and their condensates in microcavities composed of birefringent lead halide perovskite single crystals. The presence of crystalline anisotropy coupled with splitting in the optical cavity of the transverse electric (TE) and transverse magnetic (TM) modes gives rise to a non-Abelian gauge field, which can be described by the Rashba-Dresselhaus Hamiltonian near the degenerate points of the two polarization modes. With increasing density, the exciton polaritons with pseudospin textures undergo phase transitions to competing condensates with orthogonal polarizations. Unlike their pure photonic counterparts, these exciton polaritons and condensates inherit nonlinearity from their excitonic components and may serve as quantum simulators of many-body SOC processes.