arXiv subjects

G. Malpuech

Publications and source records attributed to G. Malpuech.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2016

Valley addressable exciton-polaritons in atomically thin semiconductors

While conventional semiconductor technology relies on the manipulation of electrical charge for the implementation of computational logic, additional degrees of freedom such as spin and valley offer alternative avenues for the encoding of information. In transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) monolayers, where spin-valley locking is present, strong retention of valley chirality has been reported for MoS$_2$, WSe$_2$ and WS$_2$ while MoSe$_2$ shows anomalously low valley polarisation retention. In this work, chiral selectivity of MoSe$_2$ cavity polaritons under helical excitation is reported with a polarisation degree that can be controlled by the exciton-cavity detuning. In contrast to the very low circular polarisation degrees seen in MoSe$_2$ exciton and trion resonances, we observe a significant enhancement of up to 7 times when in the polaritonic regime. Here, polaritons introduce a fast decay mechanism which inhibits full valley pseudospin relaxation and thus allows for increased retention of injected polarisation in the emitted light. A dynamical model applicable to cavity-polaritons in any TMD semiconductor, reproduces the detuning dependence through the incorporation of the cavity-modified exciton relaxation, allowing an estimate of the spin relaxation time in MoSe$_2$ which is an order of magnitude faster than those reported in other TMDs. The valley addressable exciton-polaritons reported here offer robust valley polarised states demonstrating the prospect of valleytronic devices based upon TMDs embedded in photonic structures, with significant potential for valley-dependent nonlinear polariton-polariton interactions.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Optical Valley Hall Effect based on Transitional Metal Dichalcogenide cavity polaritons

We calculate the dispersion of spinor exciton-polaritons in a planar microcavity with its active region containing a single Transitional Metal Dichalcogenide (TMD) monolayer, taking into account excitonic and photonic spin-orbit coupling. We consider the radial propagation of polaritons in presence of disorder. We show that the reduction of the disorder scattering induced by the formation of polariton states allows to observe an optical Valley Hall effect, namely the coherent precession of the locked valley and polarization pseudospins leading to the formation of spatial valley-polarized domains.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Chirality of topological gap solitons in bosonic dimer chains

We study gap solitons which appear in the topological gap of 1D bosonic dimer chains within the mean-field approximation. We find that such solitons have a non-trivial texture of the sublattice pseudospin. We reveal their chiral nature by demonstrating the anisotropy of their behavior in presence of a localized energy potential.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Full Optical Control of Topological Transitions in Polariton Chern Insulator Analog

Exciton-polariton lattices allow to implement topologically protected photonic edge states at optical frequencies. Taking advantage of the interacting character of polaritons, we show that several topological phases, belonging to the Quantum Anomalous Hall family, can occur in polariton graphene with the TE-TM spin-orbit coupling and an effective Zeeman field. This Zeeman field can be entirely controlled by the non-linearity of the macro-occupied mode created by circularly polarized resonant pumping. The topological phases found are distinct from the ones of normal graphene in presence of a combination of Rashba and Zeeman field.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Chirality in photonic systems

The optical modes of photonic structures are the so-called TE and TM modes which bring intrinsic spin-orbit coupling and chirality to these systems. This, combined with the unique flexibility of design of the photonic potential, and the possibility to mix photon states with excitonic resonances, sensitive to magnetic field and interactions, allows to achieve many phenomena, often analogous to other solid state systems. In this contribution, we review in a qualitative and comprehensive way several of these realizations, namely the optical spin Hall effect, the creation of spin currents protected by a non-trivial geometry, Berry curvature for photons, and the photonic/polaritonic topological insulator.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Kibble-Zurek mechanism in topologically non-trivial zigzag chains of polariton micropillars

We consider a zigzag chain of coupled micropillar cavities, taking into account the polarization of polariton states. We show that the TE-TM splitting of photonic cavity modes yields topologically protected polariton edge states. During the strongly non-adiabatic process of polariton condensation, the Kibble-Zurek mechanism leads to a random choice of polarization, equivalent to dimerization of polymer chains. We show that dark-bright solitons appear as domain walls between polarization domains, analogous to the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger solitons in polymers. The soliton density scales as a power law with respect to the quenching parameter.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2015

Polariton condensation phase diagram in wide bandgap planar microcavities: GaN versus ZnO

GaN and ZnO microcavities have been grown on patterned silicon substrate. Thanks to a common platform these microcavities share similar photonic properties with large quality factors and low photonic disorder which gives the possibility to determine the optimal spot diameter and to realize a complete comparative phase diagram study. Both systems have been investigated under the same experimental condition. Experimental results are well reproduced by simulation using Boltzmann equations. Lower polariton lasing threshold has been measured at low temperature in the ZnO microcavity as expected due to a larger Rabi splitting. However the threshold is strongly impacted by LO phonons through phonon-assisted polariton relaxation. We observe and discuss this effect as a function of temperature and detuning. Finally the polariton lasing threshold at room temperature is quite similar in both microcavities. This study highlights polariton relaxation mechanism and their importance for threshold optimization.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2015

Interacting quantum fluid in a polariton topological insulator

We study Bogoliubov excitations of a spinor Bose Einstein condensate in a honeycomb periodic potential, in the presence of a Zeeman field and of a spin-orbit coupling specific for photonic systems, which is due to the energy splitting between TE and TM polarized eigenstates. We also consider spin-anisotropic interactions typical for cavity polaritons. We show that the non-trivial topology of the single particle case is also present for the interacting system. At low condensate density, the topology of the single-particle bands is transferred to the bogolon dispersion. At a critical value, the self-induced Zeeman field at the Dirac points of the dispersion becomes equal to the real Zeeman field and then exceeds it. The gap is thus closed and then re-opened with inverted Chern numbers. This change of topology is accompanied by a change of the propagation directions of the one-way edge modes. This result demonstrates that the chirality of a topological insulator can be reversed by collective effects in a Bose-Einstein condensate.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2015

Exciton-polaritons in van der Waals heterostructures embedded in tunable microcavities

Layered materials can be assembled vertically to fabricate a new class of van der Waals (VDW) heterostructures a few atomic layers thick, compatible with a wide range of substrates and optoelectronic device geometries, enabling new strategies for control of light-matter coupling. Here, we incorporate molybdenum diselenide/boron nitride (MoSe$_2$/hBN) quantum wells (QWs) in a tunable optical microcavity. Part-light-part-matter polariton eigenstates are observed as a result of the strong coupling between MoSe$_2$ excitons and cavity photons, evidenced from a clear anticrossing between the neutral exciton and the cavity modes with a splitting of 20 meV for a single MoSe$_2$ monolayer QW, enhanced to 29 meV in MoSe$_2$/hBN/MoSe$_2$ double-QWs. The splitting at resonance provides an estimate of the exciton radiative lifetime of 0.4 ps. Our results pave the way for room temperature polaritonic devices based on multiple-QW VDW heterostructures, where polariton condensation and electrical polariton injection through the incorporation of graphene contacts may be realised.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Controllable structuring of exciton-polariton condensates in cylindrical pillar microcavities

We observe condensation of exciton polaritons in quantum states composed of concentric rings when exciting cylindrical pillar GaAs/AlGaAs microcavities non-resonantly by a focused laser beam normally incident at the center of the pillar. The number of rings depends on the pumping intensity and the pillar size, and may achieve 5 in the pillar of 40 mkm diameter. Breaking the axial symmetry when moving the excitation spot away from the pillar center leads to transformation of the rings into a number of bright lobes corresponding to quantum states with nonzero angular momenta. The number of lobes, their shape and location are dependent on the spot position. We describe the out-of-equilibrium condensation of polaritons in the states with different principal quantum numbers and angular momenta with a formalism based on Boltzmann-Gross-Pitaevskii equations accounting for repulsion of polaritons from the exciton reservoir formed at the excitation spot and their spatial confinement by the pillar boundary.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

All optical Controlled-NOT quantum gate based on an exciton-polariton circuit

We propose an implementation of a CNOT quantum gate for quantum computing based on a patterned microcavity polariton system, which can be manufactured using the modern technological facilities. The qubits are encoded in the spin of polaritons. The structure consists of two wire cavities oriented at 45 degrees with a micropillar between them. The polariton spin rotates due to the Longitudinal-Transverse splitting between polarisation eigenstates in the wires. In the pillar, the optically generated circularly polarised polariton macrooccupied state plays the role of the control qubit. Because of the spin-anisotropic polariton interaction, it induces an effective magnetic field along the Z-direction with a sign depending on the qubit value.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Ignition and formation dynamics of a polariton condensate on a semiconductor microcavity pillar

We present an experimental study on the ignition and decay of a polariton optical parametric oscillator (OPO) in a semiconductor microcavity pillar. The combination of a continuous wave laser pump, under quasi-phase matching conditions, and a non-resonant, 2 ps-long pulse probe allows us to obtain the full dynamics of the system. The arrival of the probe induces a blue-shift in the polariton emission, bringing the OPO process into resonance with the pump, which triggers the OPO-process. We time-resolve the polariton OPO signal emission for more than 1 nanosecond in both real and momentum-space. We fully characterize the emission of the OPO signal with spectral tomography techniques. Our interpretations are backed up by theoretical simulations based on the 2D coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equation for excitons and photons.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Optical amplifier based on guided polaritons in GaN and ZnO

We propose a scheme of an optical amplifier based on GaN and ZnO waveguides operating in the regime of strong coupling between photonic modes and excitonic resonances. Amplification of the guided exciton-polaritons is obtained by stimulated scattering from the excitonic reservoir, which is found to be fast enough compared with the large velocity of the guided polariton modes. We analyze the device parameters at different temperatures. We find that an 80 $μ$m-long amplifier can provide a gain of 10dB at room temperature, being supplied by 5 mA current in the $cw$ regime.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Voltage control of the spin-dependent interaction constants of Dipolaritons and its application to Optical Parametric Oscillator

Dipolariton is a voltage controlled mixture of direct and indirect excitons in asymmetric double quantum wells coupled by resonant carrier tunneling, and a microcavity photon. We calculate the voltage dependence of the spin-singlet and spin-triplet interaction parameters $α_{1}$ and $α_{2}$. Both parameters can reach values one order of magnitude larger than that of exciton-polaritons thanks to the strong interaction between indirect excitons. We show that the variation of the indirect exciton fraction of the dipolaritons induces a changes of sign of $α_{2}$ increasing voltage: the interaction passes from attractive to repulsive. For large enough voltage $α_{2}$ becomes larger than $α_{1}$ which in principle can lead to the formation of a circularly polarised dipolariton condensate. We propose an application of the $α_{2}$ dependence to a voltage-controlled dipolaritonic optical parametric oscillator. The change of sign of $α_{2}$ allows an on-site control of the linear polarization degree of the optical signal and its on-demand inversion.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Polariton $\mathbb{Z}$ Topological Insulator

Recent search for optical analogues of topological phenomena mainly focuses on mimicking the key feature of quantum Hall and quantum spin Hall effects (QHE and QSHE): edge currents protected from disorder. QHE relies on time-reversal symmetry breaking, which can be realised in photonic gyromagnetic crystals. In the optical range, the weak magneto-optical activity may be replaced with helical design of coupled waveguides, converting light propagation into a time-dependent perturbation. Finally, optical QHE due to artificial gauge fields was predicted in microcavity lattices. Here, we consider honeycomb arrays of microcavity pillars as an alternative optical-frequency 2D topological insulator. We show that the interplay between the photonic spin-orbit coupling natively present in this system and the Zeeman splitting of exciton-polaritons in external magnetic fields leads to the opening of a non-trivial gap characterised by $C=\pm 2$ set of band Chern numbers and to the formation of topologically protected one-way edge states.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Driven-dissipative confined polariton condensate under magnetic field

We investigate exciton-polariton condensation under magnetic field in a single high-quality semiconductor micropillar cavity. We observe successive polariton condensation of each spin component for two distinct threshold powers. Pronounced and non-monotonous variations of both the Zeeman splitting and the circular polarization of the emission are measured across these two condensation thresholds. This unexpected behavior deeply deviates from the so-called spin Meissner effect predicted for a fully thermalized system. Our measurements can be understood in a kinetic approach taking into account spin-anisotropic interactions within the entire system: the polariton condensate and the cloud of uncondensed excitons.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Engineering spin-orbit coupling for photons and polaritons in microstructures

One of the most fundamental properties of electromagnetism and special relativity is the coupling between the spin of an electron and its orbital motion. This is at the origin of the fine structure in atoms, the spin Hall effect in semiconductors, and underlies many intriguing properties of topological insulators, in particular their chiral edge states. Configurations where neutral particles experience an effective spin-orbit coupling have been recently proposed and realized using ultracold atoms and photons. Here we use coupled micropillars etched out of a semiconductor microcavity to engineer a spin-orbit Hamiltonian for photons and polaritons in a microstructure. The coupling between the spin and orbital momentum arises from the polarisation dependent confinement and tunnelling of photons between micropillars arranged in the form of a hexagonal photonic molecule. Dramatic consequences of the spin-orbit coupling are experimentally observed in these structures in the wavefunction of polariton condensates, whose helical shape is directly visible in the spatially resolved polarisation patterns of the emitted light. The strong optical nonlinearity of polariton systems suggests exciting perspectives for using quantum fluids of polaritons11 for quantum simulation of the interplay between interactions and spin-orbit coupling.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Annular Vortex Chain in a Resonantly Pumped Polariton Superfluid

We report the formation of a ring-shaped array of vortices after injection of angular momentum in a polariton superfluid. The angular momentum is injected by a $\ell= 8$ Laguerre-Gauss beam, whereas the global rotation of the fluid is hindered by a narrow Gaussian beam placed at its center. In the linear regime a spiral interference pattern containing phase defects is visible. In the nonlinear (superfluid) regime, the interference disappears and the vortices nucleate as a consequence of the angular momentum quantization. The radial position of the vortices evolves freely in the region between the two pumps as a function of the density. Hydrodynamic instabilities resulting in the spontaneous nucleation of vortex-antivortex pairs when the system size is sufficiently large confirm that the vortices are not constrained by interference when nonlinearities dominate the system.

cond-mat.other↗