Light dressed-excitons in an incoherent-electron sea: Evidence for Mollow-triplet and Autler-Townes doublet

We demonstrate that the interaction between excitons and a sea of incoherent electrons does not preclude excitons dressing by light. We investigate the role of exciton-electron scattering in the light dressing by measuring the dynamical absorption spectrum of a modulation-doped CdTe quantum well, which shows a clear evidence for significant electron scattering of the excitonic states. We show the occurrence of dressed and correlated excitons by detecting quantum coherent interferences through excitonic Autler-Townes doublet and ac Stark splitting, which evolves to Mollow triplet with gain. We also evidence the partial inhibition of the electron-exciton scattering by exciton-light coupling

Dephasing effects on coherent exciton-polaritons and the breakdown of the strong coupling regime

International audienceUsing femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopy, we identify excitation-induced dephasing as a major mechanism responsible for the breakdown of the strong coupling between excitons and photons in a semiconductor microcavity. The effects of dephasing are observed on the transmitted probe-pulse spectrum as a density-dependent broadening of the exciton-polariton resonances and the emergence of a third resonance at high excitation density. A striking asymmetry in the energy shift between the upper and the lower polaritons is also evidenced. Using the excitonic Bloch equations, we quantify the respective contributions to the energy shift of many-body effects associated with Coulomb fermion exchange and photon assisted exchange processes and the contribution to collisional broadening

Anderson localisation in steady states of microcavity polaritons

We present an experimental signature of the Anderson localisation of microcavity polaritons, and provide a systematic study of the dependence on disorder strength. We reveal a controllable degree of localisation, as characterised by the inverse-participation ratio, by tuning the positional disorder of arrays of interacting mesas. This constitutes the realisation of disorder-induced localisation in a driven-dissipative system. In addition to being an ideal candidate for investigating localisation in this regime, microcavity polaritons hold promise for low-power, ultra-small devices and their localisation could be used as a resource in quantum memory and quantum information processing.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

Temporally resolved second-order photon correlations of exciton-polariton Bose-Einstein condensate formation

Second-order time correlation measurements with a temporal resolution better than 3 ps were performed on a CdTe microcavity where spontaneous Bose-Einstein condensation is observed. After the laser pulse, the nonresonantly excited thermal polariton population relaxes into a coherent polariton condensate. Photon statistics of the light emitted by the microcavity evidences a clear phase transition from the thermal state to a coherent state, which occurs within 3.2 ps after the onset of stimulated scattering. Following this very fast transition, we show that the emission possesses a very high coherence that persists for more than 100 ps after the build-up of the condensate.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Effect of a noisy driving field on a bistable polariton system

International audienceWe report on the effect of noise on the characteristics of the bistable polariton emission system. The present experiment provides a time-resolved access to the polariton emission intensity. We evidence the noise-induced transitions between the two stable states of the bistable polaritons. It is shown that the external noise specifications, intensity and correlation time, can efficiently modify the polariton Kramers time and residence time. We find that there is a threshold noise strength that provokes the collapse of the hysteresis loop. The experimental results are reproduced by numerical simulations using Gross-Pitaevskii equation driven by a stochastic excitation

Periodic squeezing in a polariton Josephson junction

The use of a Kerr nonlinearity to generate squeezed light is a well-known way to surpass the quantum noise limit along a given field quadrature. Nevertheless, in the most common regime of weak nonlinearity, a single Kerr resonator is unable to provide the proper interrelation between the field amplitude and squeezing required to induce a sizable deviation from Poissonian statistics. We demonstrate experimentally that weakly coupled bosonic modes allow exploration of the interplay between squeezing and displacement, which can give rise to strong deviations from the Poissonian statistics. In particular, we report on the periodic bunching in a Josephson junction formed by two coupled exciton-polariton modes. Quantum modeling traces the bunching back to the presence of quadrature squeezing. Our results, linking the light statistics to squeezing, are a precursor to the study of nonclassical features in semiconductor microcavities and other weakly nonlinear bosonic systems.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Ultrafast dynamics of Rydberg states in the condensed phase

The ultrafast dynamics are reported of bubble formation following excitation of the A 2S+ 3ss(v = 0) Rydberg state of NO trapped in Ar matrixes. The study is carried out by a fs pump-probe technique. The detected signal is the depletion of Rydberg fluorescence induced by Rydberg-Rydberg transitions. Possibly the bubble is formed on a timescale of a few ps. [on SciFinder (R)

Observation of coherent cage motion in electronically excited doped argon and hydrogen crystals

We report on the ultrafast dynamics of electronic bubble formation following excitation of the A 3ss Rydberg state of the NO mol. trapped in argon and hydrogen matrixes. The study is carried out by femtosecond fluorescence depletion expts. Apparently in hydrogen, relaxation occurs in .apprx.1.5 ps via a collective displacement of the cage species with no recurrencies. In argon, the cage expands by undergoing coherent recurrencies for over .apprx.3 ps, on its way to the fully relaxed bubble configuration. [on SciFinder (R)]LS

Influence of a nonradiative reservoir on polariton spin multistability

International audienceIn this work, we study the influence of the excitation conditions on power-dependent spin switching and spin multistability of exciton polaritons in planar semiconductor microcavities. We obtain experimental evidence for the influence of a reservoir of nonradiative states which make a determining contribution to the dynamics of polaritons. While the spinor Gross-Pitaevskii equation (SGPE) fails in reproducing some critical experimental trends, an extended set of equations including a nonradiative reservoir allows us to reproduce the experiments quantitatively. We find that the energy renormalization of the exciton field due to the reservoir is crucial to describe power-dependent spin switching. The reservoir is also responsible for the effective repulsive interactions between polaritons of opposite spin obtained in the framework of the SGPE. Two important parameters, the coupling of the spinor polariton fields to the reservoir and the decay of the reservoir, are determined experimentally. We present indications that the reservoir originates from the formation of biexcitons and is constituted of localized exciton states