Spin multistability of cavity polaritons in a magnetic field

Spin transitions are studied theoretically and experimentally in a resonantly excited system of cavity polaritons in a magnetic field. Weak pair interactions in this boson system make possible fast and massive spin flips occurring at critical amplitudes due to the interplay between amplitude dependent shifts of eigenstates and the Zeeman splitting. Dominant spin of a condensate can be toggled forth and back by tuning of the pump intensity only, which opens the way for ultra-fast spin switchings of polariton condensates on a picosecond timescale.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Polariton multistability and fast linear-to-circular polarization conversion in planar microcavities with lowered symmetry

The multistability of cavity-polariton systems with lowered symmetry (e.g., in laterally strained microcavities) allows implementing a few picoseconds long switching from linear to almost circular polarization of the cavity transmission under a resonant linearly polarized optical pump with slowly changing intensity. This effect has been observed in a high-Q GaAs microcavity using spectrally narrow 70 ps long pump pulses.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Spin and density patterns of polariton condensates resonantly excited in strained planar microcavities with a nonuniform potential landscape

Spin and density patterns of exciton-polariton condensates in strained planar cavities with a nonuniform energy landscape are shown to undergo fast nonequilibrium transformations under the conditions of pulsed resonant excitation. Maxima in the spatial distribution of condensate density shift from the potential humps to the traps, which is accompanied by a linear-to-circular polarization conversion at each space point. The transitions are explained within the framework of modified Gross-Pitaevskii equations with account taken for the spin-anisotropic polariton-polariton interaction and the spatial dependence of the polariton energy.</p