We studied monatomic linear carbon chains stabilized by gold nanoparticles attached to their ends and deposited on a solid substrate. We observe spectral features of straight chains containing from 8 to 24 atoms. Low-temperature PL spectra reveal characteristic triplet fine structures that repeat themselves for carbon chains of different lengths. The triplet is invariably composed of a sharp intense peak accompanied by two broader satellites situated 15 and 40 meV below the main peak. We interpret these resonances as an edge-state neutral exciton and positively and negatively charged trions, respectively. The time-resolved PL shows that the radiative lifetime of the observed quasiparticles is about 1 ns, and it increases with the increase of the length of the chain. At high temperatures a nonradiative exciton decay channel appears due to the thermal hopping of carriers between parallel carbon chains. Excitons in carbon chains possess large oscillator strengths and extremely low inhomogeneous broadenings.

We investigate the optical orientation, polarization pinning, and depolarization of optically confined semiconductor exciton-polariton condensates. We perform a complete mapping of the condensate polarization as a function of incident nonresonant excitation polarization and power. We utilize a ring-shaped excitation pattern to generate an exciton-induced potential that spatially confines polariton condensates into a single mode. We observe that formation of circular polarization in the condensate persists even for a weakly cocircularly polarized pump. By varying the excitation ring diameter we realize a transition from the condensate polarization being pinned along the coordinate-dependent cavity-strain axes, to a regime of zero degree of condensate polarization. Analysis through the driven-dissipative stochastic Gross-Pitaevskii equation reveals that this depolarization stems from a competition between sample induced in-plane polarization splitting and the condensate-reservoir overlap. An increase in the role of the latter results in weakening of the condensate fixed-point phase space attractors, and enhanced random phase space walk and appearance of limit cycle trajectories, reducing the degree of time-integrated polarization.

Recently, we have experimentally observed signatures of sharp exciton peaks in the photoluminescence spectra of bundles of monoatomic carbon chains stabilized by gold nanoparticles and deposited on a glass substrate [1]. Here, we estimate the characteristic energies of excitonic transitions in this complex quasi-one-dimensional nano-system with use of the variational method. We show that the characteristic energy scale for the experimentally observed excitonic fine structure is governed by the interplay between the hopping energy in a Van der Waals quasicrystal formed by parallel carbon chains, the neutral-charged exciton splitting and the positive-negative trion splitting. These three characteristic energies are an order of magnitude lower than the direct exciton binding energy.

We demonstrate all-optical linear polarization control in semiconductor microcavities using an exciton-polariton condensate in an elliptically shaped optical trap. The microcavity inherent TE-TM splitting lifts the pseudospin degeneracy of the anisotropic trap ground state. The emerging fine structure modes are shown to be polarized linearly parallel and perpendicular to the trap major axis. We demonstrate polariton condensation into the excited pseudospin mode with high degree of linear polarization which rotates as we rotate the trap. We then extend our study to a system of two coupled linearly polarized condensates and demonstrate rich spin dynamics reflecting spontaneous synchronization and high correlation between the condensate pseudospins as a function of pump parameters. Our findings show a new type of polarization control with exciting perspectives in both spinoptronics and studies on extended systems of interacting nonlinear optical elements with anisotropic coupling strength and adjustable fine structure.I.

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