Creation of orbital angular momentum states with chiral polaritonic lenses

Controlled transfer of orbital angular momentum to an exciton-polariton Bose-Einstein condensate spontaneously created under incoherent, off resonant excitation conditions is a long-standing challenge in the field of microcavity polaritonics. We demonstrate, experimentally and theoretically, a simple and efficient approach to the generation of nontrivial orbital angular momentum states by using optically induced potentials - chiral polaritonic lenses. These lenses are produced by a structured optical pump with a spatial distribution of intensity that breaks the chiral symmetry of the system.