Thermodynamics and Excitations of Condensed Polaritons in Disordered Microcavities

TL;DR

This paper investigates how disorder affects the thermodynamics and excitations of microcavity polaritons, revealing that while weak disorder minimally impacts the phase transition, it significantly influences the condensed state's excitations observable via Rayleigh scattering.

Contribution

It introduces a realistic disorder model for microcavity polaritons, accurately capturing inhomogeneous broadening and scattering effects in the condensed regime.

Findings

Weak disorder minimally affects the thermodynamic transition.

Disorder significantly influences excitations in the condensed state.

Resonant Rayleigh scattering reveals disorder effects in polariton condensates.

Abstract

We study the thermodynamic condensation of microcavity polaritons using a realistic model of disorder in semiconductor quantum wells. This approach correctly describes the polariton inhomogeneous broadening in the low density limit, and treats scattering by disorder to all orders in the condensed regime. While the weak disorder changes the thermodynamic properties of the transition little, the effects of disorder in the condensed state are prominent in the excitations and can be seen in resonant Rayleigh scattering.