Pseudospin dynamics of exciton-polariton patterns in a coherently driven semiconductor microcavity

Abstract

The influence of the exciton spin on the formation and stability properties of periodic cavity polariton patterns is studied in a semiconductor microcavity operating in the strong-coupling regime. A linearly polarized optical beam excites polaritons formed by excitons with different spin orientations and left-and right-circularly polarized photons. The perturbation analysis of homogeneous solutions reveals a competition between these two spin states. The outcome of this competition is determined by the sign of the cross-phase modulation parameter. In particular, it is shown that linearly polarized patterns are preferred, if this parameter is positive. Otherwise, a spontaneous symmetry-breaking instability leads to the formation of transverse patterns with a spatial polarization asymmetry. In the regime of bistable homogeneous solutions we observe the spontaneous formation of domains framed by one-dimensional dark half solitons.

Optical control of spin textures in quasi-one-dimensional polariton condensates

“…The effective magnetic field representing the optical spin Hall effect can be utilized, for example, to generate polarization textures [4,36], where the polaritons propagate in rings spreading in real space, showing oscillations of the polarization degree in azimuthal angle and time; to convert the spin to orbital angular momentum [37]; to create spin-polarized vortices [37][38][39][40]; and to form half-dark solitons [41,42] and very similar structures [43] in the wake of an obstacle. Recent theoretical work has also examined the role of the optical spin Hall effect in driving polarized bright solitons [44] and other spin patterns [45,46].…”

Localized Structures in Broad Area VCSELs: Experiments and Delay-Induced Motion

“…However, when the distance between peaks decreases they start to interact via their oscillating, exponentially decaying tails [4,5,6,7]. LSs have been reported in nonlinear resonators such as lasers with saturable absorbers [8,9,10], in passive nonlinear resonators [2,3,11], optical parametric oscillators [12,13], in left-handed materials [14,15,16,17], in exciton-polariton patterns in semiconductor microcavities [18,19] and in the framework of the Ginzburg-Landau equation [20,21,22,23,24]. Phase solitons have been demonstrated far from any pattern forming instability [25,26,27,28,29,30].…”