Enhanced Cavity Optomechanics with Quantum-well Exciton Polaritons

TL;DR

This paper theoretically demonstrates that semiconductor microresonators with quantum wells can significantly enhance polariton-phonon interactions, enabling near-unity quantum cooperativity and affecting mechanical motion control.

Contribution

It introduces a method to boost polariton-phonon interactions in semiconductor resonators, surpassing traditional optomechanical coupling levels.

Findings

Polariton-phonon interactions are enhanced by two orders of magnitude.

Near-unity single-polariton quantum cooperativity is achievable.

Polariton nonlinearities influence mechanical cooling and amplification.

Abstract

Semiconductor microresonators embedding quantum wells can host tightly confined and mutually interacting excitonic, optical and mechanical modes at once. We theoretically investigate the case where the system operates in the strong exciton-photon coupling regime, while the optical and excitonic resonances are parametrically modulated by the interaction with a mechanical mode. Owing to the large exciton-phonon coupling at play in semiconductors, we predict an enhancement of polariton-phonon interactions by two orders of magnitude with respect to mere optomechanical coupling: a near-unity single-polariton quantum cooperativity is within reach for current semiconductor resonator platforms. We further analyze how polariton nonlinearities affect dynamical back-action, modifying the capability to cool or amplify the mechanical motion.