Superfluid drag between excitonic polaritons and superconducting electron gas

TL;DR

This paper predicts a superfluid drag effect between excitonic polaritons and a superconducting electron gas, potentially observable as a supercurrent induced by polariton flow, based on many-body calculations considering realistic material systems.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of superfluid drag between excitonic polaritons and a superconducting layer, with detailed calculations of drag density in realistic material setups.

Findings

Drag density can reach significant values in GaAs or TMD-based layers.

The effect could induce a supercurrent in the electronic layer.

Predicted nondissipative drag is potentially observable.

Abstract

The Andreev-Bashkin effect, or superfluid drag, is predicted in a system of Bose-condensed excitonic polaritons in optical microcavity coupled by electron-exciton interaction with a superconducting layer. Two possible setups with spatially indirect dipole excitons or direct excitons are considered. The drag density characterizing a magnitude of this effect is found by many-body calculations with taking into account dynamical screening of electron-exciton interaction. For the superconducting electronic layer, we assume the recently proposed polaritonic mechanism of Cooper pairing, although the preexisting thin-film superconductor should also demonstrate the effect. According to our calculations, the drag density can reach considerable values in realistic conditions, with excitonic and electronic layers made from GaAs-based quantum wells or two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides. The predicted nondissipative drag could be strong enough to be observable as induction of a supercurrent in the electronic layer by a flow of polariton Bose condensate.