arXiv subjects

Ken West

Publications and source records attributed to Ken West.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Mirror-mediated long-range coupling and robust phase locking of spatially separated exciton-polariton condensates

Lattice arrays are valuable simulators for complex mathematical problems, but physical systems typically allow only short-range coupling. We demonstrate a method for independently tunable, long-range interactions between polariton condensates in two-dimensional lattices by using vertical emission and external imaging to couple arbitrary sites. Two geometrically isolated condensates are phase-locked without planar coupling, verified via phase-resolved interferometry. Analytical modeling reveals mechanisms for robust coherence. The mirror-based scheme, free of cameras or modulators, offers a pure, high-bandwidth analogt element. Extension to dense graphs via segmented micro-mirrors is limited only by imaging optics, enabling scalable, energy-efficient polaritonic hardware for neuromorphic computation.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2025

Strong coupling of polaritons at room temperature in a GaAs/AlGaAs structure

We report direct measurement of the dispersion relation of polaritons in GaAs/AlGaAs microcavity structures at room temperature, which clearly shows that the polaritons are in the strong coupling limit. The Rabi splitting of the polariton states decreases as the polariton gas increases in density, but even when the polariton gas becomes a coherent, Bose-condensate-like state, the polaritons retain a strong exciton component, as seen in the nonlinear energy shift of the light emission. This opens up the possibility of polaritonic devices at room temperature in a material system which can be grown with very high quality and uniformity.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2024

Targeted Polariton Flow Through Tailored Photonic Defects

In non-Hermitian open quantum systems, such as polariton condensates, local tailoring of gains and losses opens up an interesting possibility to realize functional optical elements. Here, we demonstrate that deliberately introducing losses via a photonic defect, realized by reducing the quality factor of a DBR mirror locally within an ultrahigh-quality microcavity, may be utilized to create directed polariton currents towards the defect. We discuss the role of polariton-polariton interactions in the process and how to tailor the effective decay time of a polariton condensate via coupling to the defect. Our results highlight the far-reaching potential of non-Hermitian physics in polaritonics.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2024

Quantum coherence of a long-lifetime exciton-polariton condensate

In recent years, quantum information science has made significant progress, leading to a multitude of quantum protocols for the most diverse applications. States carrying resources such as quantum coherence are a key component for these protocols. In this study, we optimize the quantum coherence of a nonresonantly excited exciton-polariton condensate of long living polaritons by minimizing the condensate's interaction with the surrounding reservoir of excitons and free carriers. By combining experimental phase space data with a displaced thermal state model, we observe how quantum coherence builds up as the system is driven above the condensation threshold. Our findings demonstrate that a spatial separation between the condensate and the reservoir enhances the state's maximum quantum coherence directly beyond the threshold. These insights pave the way for integrating polariton systems into hybrid quantum devices and advancing applications in quantum technologies.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2024

Bose-Einstein condensation of polaritons at room temperature in a GaAs/AlGaAs structure

We report the canonical properties of Bose-Einstein condensation of polaritons, seen previously in many low-temperature experiments, at room temperature in a GaAs/AlGaAs structure. These effects include a nonlinear energy shift of the polaritons, showing that they are not non-interacting photons, and dramatic line narrowing due to coherence, giving coherent emission with spectral width of 0.24 meV at room temperature with no external stabilization. This opens up the possibility of room temperature nonlinear optical devices based on polariton condensation.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2024

Measurement of exciton fraction of microcavity exciton-polaritons using transfer-matrix modeling

We present a careful calibration of the exciton fraction of polaritons in high-$Q$ ($\sim 300,000$), long-lifetime ($\sim 300$ ps), GaAs/AlGaAs microcavities.This is a crucial parameter for many-body theories which include the polariton-polariton interactions.It is much harder to establish this number in high-$Q$ structures compared to low-$Q$ structures, because the upper polariton is nearly invisible in high-$Q$ cavities.We present a combination of photoluminescence, photoluminescence excitation, and reflectivity measurements to highly constrain the fit model, and compare the results of this model to the results from low-$Q$ structures.We present a fitted curve of exciton fraction as a function of the lower polariton energy for multiple samples which have been used in prior experiments.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2023

Coherence measurements of polaritons in thermal equilibrium reveal a power law for two-dimensional condensates

We have created a spatially homogeneous polariton condensate in thermal equilibrium, up to very high condensate fraction. Under these conditions, we have measured the coherence as a function of momentum, and determined the total coherent fraction of this boson system from very low density up to density well above the condensation transition. These measurements reveal a consistent power law for the coherent fraction as a function of the total density over nearly three orders of its magnitude. The same power law is seen in numerical simulations solving the two-dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii equation for the equilibrium coherence. This power law has not been predicted by prior analytical theories.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2023

Bloch-Wave Interferometry of Driven Quasiparticles in Bulk GaAs

We report that the polarizations of sidebands emitted from bulk gallium arsenide (GaAs) driven by a strong terahertz (THz) laser while probed with a weak near-infrared laser can be viewed as interferograms from a Michelson-like interferometer for Bloch waves. A simple analytical model is introduced to calculate the difference in quantum mechanical phases accumulated by Bloch waves associated with electron-heavy hole and electron-light hole pairs in their respective interferometer arms. The measured and calculated spectra are in good quantitative agreement, including scaling with THz field strength. Our results indicate a simple way to extract material parameters in future experiments

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2022

Critical fluctuations in a confined driven-dissipative quantum condensate

Phase fluctuations determine the low-energy properties of quantum condensates. However, at the condensation threshold, both density and phase fluctuations are relevant. While strong emphasis has been given to the investigation of phase fluctuations, which dominate the physics of the quantum system away from the critical point -- number fluctuations have been much less explored, even in thermal equilibrium. In this work, we report experimental observation and theoretical description of fluctuations in a circularly-confined non-equilibrium Bose-Einstein condensate of polaritons near the condensation threshold. We observe critical fluctuations, which combine the number fluctuations of a single-mode condensate state and competition between different states. The latter are analogous to mode hopping in photon lasers. Our theoretical analysis indicates that this phenomenon is of a quantum character, while classical noise of the pump is not sufficient to explain the experiments. The manifestation of a critical quantum state competition unlocks new possibilities for the study of condensate formation while linking to practical realizations in photonic lasers.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2022

Non-linear Transport Phenomena and Current-induced Hydrodynamics in Ultra-high Mobility Two-dimensional Electron Gas

We report on non-linear transport phenomena at high filling factor and DC current-induced electronic hydrodynamics in an ultra-high mobility (mu=20x10^6 cm^2/Vs) two-dimensional electron gas in a narrow (15 micron wide) GaAs/AlGaAs Hall bar for DC current densities reaching 0.67 A/m. The various phenomena and the boundaries between the phenomena are captured together in a two-dimensional differential resistivity map as a function of magnetic field (up to 250 mT) and DC current. This map, which resembles a phase diagram, demarcate distinct regions dominated by Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) oscillations (and phase inversion of these oscillations) around zero DC current; negative magnetoresistance and a double-peak feature (both ballistic in origin) around zero field; and Hall field-induced resistance oscillations (HIROs) radiating out from the origin. From a detailed analysis of the data near zero field, we show that increasing the DC current suppresses the electron-electron scattering length that drives a growing hydrodynamic contribution to both the differential longitudinal and transverse (Hall) resistivities. Our approach to induce hydrodynamics with DC current differs from the more usual approach of changing the temperature. We also find a significant (factor of two to four) difference between the quantum lifetime extracted from SdH oscillations, and the quantum lifetime extracted from HIROs. In addition to observing HIRO peaks up to the seventh order, we observe an unexpected HIRO-like feature close to mid-way between the first-order and the second-order HIRO maxima at high DC current.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

Ballistic transport of a polariton ring condensate with spin precession

It is now routine to make Bose-Einstein condensates of polaritons with long enough lifetime and low enough disorder to travel ballistically for hundreds of microns in quasi-one-dimensional (1D) wires. We present observations of a polariton condensate injected at one point in a quasi-1D ring, with a well-defined initial velocity and direction. A clear precession of the circular polarization is seen, which arises from an effective spin-orbit coupling term in the Hamiltonian. Our theoretical model accurately predicts the experimentally observed behavior, and shows that "zitterbewegung" behavior plays a role in the motion of the polaritons.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2021

Correlated double-electron additions at the edge of a two-dimensional electronic system

We create laterally large and low disorder quantum well based quantum dots to study single electron additions to two dimensional electron systems (2DES). Electrons tunnel into these dots across an AlGaAs tunnel barrier from a single $n+$ electrode. Using single-electron capacitance spectroscopy in a dilution refrigerator, we identify capacitance peaks for the addition of the first electron to a dot and record subsequent peaks in the addition spectrum up to occupancies of thousands of electrons. Here, we report two remarkable phenomena that occur in the filling factor range $ν=2$ to $ν=5$ while selectively probing electron additions to the edge states of the dot: (1) Coulomb blockade peaks arise from the entrance of two electrons rather than one; (2) at and near filling factor 5/2 and at fixed gate voltage, these double-height peaks appear uniformly with a periodicity of $h/2e$. At other filling factors in the range $ν=2$ to $ν=5$, the mean periodicity for the twice-height electron peaks remains $h/2e$, but the twice-height peaks are instead further bunched into pairs of double-height peaks, with pairs spaced $h/e$ apart. The unusual two-electron Coulomb blockade peaks suggest a novel pair tunneling effect that involves electron correlations that arise in the quantum dot, with spectra at $ν=5/2$ identical to those previously only seen in superconducting dots.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2019

Direct observation of the quantum-fluctuation driven amplitude mode in a microcavity polariton condensate

The Higgs amplitude mode is a collective excitation studied and observed in a broad class of matter, including superconductors, charge density waves, antiferromagnets, 3He p-wave superfluid, and ultracold atomic condensates. In all the observations reported thus far, the amplitude mode was excited by perturbing the condensate out of equilibrium. Studying an exciton-polariton condensate, here we report the first observation of this mode purely driven by intrinsic quantum fluctuations without such perturbations. By using an ultrahigh quality microcavity and a Raman spectrometer to maximally reject photoluminescence from the condensate, we observe weak but distinct photoluminescence at energies below the condensate emission. We identify this as the so-called ghost branches of the amplitude mode arising from quantum depletion of the condensate into this mode. These energies, as well as the overall structure of the photoluminescence spectra, are in good agreement with our theoretical analysis.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2019

Acousto-electric study of microwave-induced current domains

Surface Acoustic Waves (SAW) have been utilized to investigate the properties of a two-dimensional electron system, subjected to a perpendicular magnetic field and monochromatic microwave radiation, in the regime where the so-called microwave-induced zero-resistance states form. Contrary to conventional magneto-transport in Hall bar and van der Pauw geometries, the collimated SAW beam probes only the bulk of the electronic system exposed to this wave. Clear signatures appear in the SAW propagation velocity corroborating that neither contacts, nor sample edges are a root source for their emergence. By virtue of the directional nature of this probing method and with the assistance of theoretical modelling, we were also able to demonstrate that the SAW response depends on the angle between its propagation vector and the orientation of domains which spontaneously form when zero-resistance is observed in transport. This confirms in unprecedented manner the formation of an inhomogeneous phase under these non-equilibrium conditions.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Attractive dipolar coupling between stacked exciton fluids

The interaction between aligned dipoles is long-ranged and highly anisotropic: it changes from repulsive to attractive depending on the relative positions of the dipoles. We report on the observation of the attractive component of the dipolar coupling between excitonic dipoles in stacked semiconductor bilayers. We show that the presence of a dipolar exciton fluid in one bilayer modifies the spatial distribution and increases the binding energy of excitonic dipoles in a vertically remote layer. The binding energy changes are explained by a many-body polaron model describing the deformation of the exciton cloud due to its interaction with a remote dipolar exciton. The results open the way for the observation of theoretically predicted new and exotic collective phases, the realization of interacting dipolar lattices in semiconductor systems as well as for engineering and sensing their collective excitations.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2018

Interaction between stimulated current injection and polariton condensate

In this paper, we see a strong effect of the injected current on the light emission from the polariton condensate in an n-i-n structure, when we monitor the luminescence intensity under applied bias at various pump powers. We present here three thresholds for nonlinear increase of the intensity. We show that small changes of the incoherent injected current lead to stimulated enhancement of the coherent light emission from free carriers. We conclude that the polariton condensate-current system is a highly nonlinear electro-optical system.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Transition from spin-orbit to hyperfine dominated spin relaxation in a cold fluid of dipolar excitons

We measure the spin-resolved transport of dipolar excitons in a biased GaAs double quantum well structure. From these measurements we extract both spin lifetime and mobility of the excitons. We find that below a temperature of $4.8$K, there is a sharp increase in the spin lifetime of the excitons, together with a sharp reduction in their mobility. Below a critical power the spin lifetime increases with increasing mobility and density, while above the critical power the opposite trend is observed. We interpret this transition as an evidence of the interplay between two different spin dephasing mechanisms: at low mobility the dephasing is dominated by the hyperfine interaction with the lattice nuclei spins, while at higher mobility the spin-orbit interaction dominates, and a Dyakonov-Perel spin relaxation takes over. The excitation power and temperature regime where the hyperfine interaction induced spin dephasing is observed correlates with the regime where a dark dipolar quantum liquid was reported recently on a similar sample.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2017

Full Momentum and Energy Resolved Spectral Function of a 2D Electronic System

The single-particle spectral function measures the density of electronic states (DOS) in a material as a function of both momentum and energy, providing central insights into phenomena such as superconductivity and Mott insulators. While scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and other tunneling methods have provided partial spectral information, until now only angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) has permitted a comprehensive determination of the spectral function of materials in both momentum and energy. However, ARPES operates only on electronic systems at the material surface and cannot work in the presence of applied magnetic fields. Here, we demonstrate a new method for determining the full momentum and energy resolved electronic spectral function of a two-dimensional (2D) electronic system embedded in a semiconductor. In contrast with ARPES, the technique remains operational in the presence of large externally applied magnetic fields and functions for electronic systems with zero electrical conductivity or with zero electron density. It provides a direct high-resolution and high-fidelity probe of the dispersion and dynamics of the interacting 2D electron system. By ensuring the system of interest remains under equilibrium conditions, we uncover delicate signatures of many-body effects involving electron-phonon interactions, plasmons, polarons, and a novel phonon analog of the vacuum Rabi splitting in atomic systems.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗