Trembling Motion of Exciton-Polaritons Close to the Rashba-Dresselhaus Regime

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates room-temperature emulation of trembling quantum motion, or Zitterbewegung, of exciton polaritons in a microcavity with tunable spin-orbit coupling, revealing transitions from relativistic to non-relativistic regimes.

Contribution

It introduces a method to emulate relativistic quantum effects using exciton polaritons with tunable spin-orbit coupling in a microcavity.

Findings

Observation of trembling motion in polariton fluid

Tunable transition from relativistic to non-relativistic regimes

Spin pattern resembling interlocked fingers

Abstract

We report the experimental emulation of trembling quantum motion, or Zitterbewegung, of exciton polaritons in a perovskite microcavity at room temperature. By introducing liquid crystal molecules into the microcavity, we achieve spinor states with synthetic Rashba-Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling and tunable energy splitting. Under a resonant excitation, the polariton fluid exhibits clear trembling motion perpendicular to its flowing direction, accompanied by a unique spin pattern resembling interlocked fingers. Furthermore, leveraging on the sizable tunability of energy gaps by external electrical voltages, we observe the continuous transition of polariton Zitterbewegung from relativistic (small gaps) to non-relativistic (large gaps) regimes. Our findings pave the way for using exciton polaritons in the emulation of relativistic quantum physics.