From polariton condensates to highly photonic quantum degenerate states of bosonic matter

Marc Assmann*, Jean-Sebastian Tempel, Franziska Veit, Manfred Bayer, Arash Rahimi-Iman, Andreas Loeffler, Sven Höfling, Stephan Reitzenstein, Lukas Worschech, Alfred Forchel

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) is a thermodynamic phase transition of an interacting Bose gas. Its key signatures are remarkable quantum effects like superfluidity and a phonon-like Bogoliubov excitation spectrum, which have been verified for atomic BECs. In the solid state, BEC of exciton-polaritons has been reported. Polaritons are strongly coupled light-matter quasiparticles in semiconductor microcavities and composite bosons. However, they are subject to dephasing and decay and need external pumping to reach a steady state. Accordingly the polariton BEC is a nonequilibrium process of a degenerate polariton gas in self-equilibrium, but out of equilibrium with the baths it is coupled to and therefore deviates from the thermodynamic phase transition seen in atomic BECs. Here we show that key signatures of BEC can even be observed without fulfilling the self-equilibrium condition in a highly photonic quantum degenerate nonequilibrium system.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1804-1809
Number of pages6
JournalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Volume108
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Feb 2011

Keywords

  • photon statistics
  • quantum optics
  • semiconductor photon sources
  • BOSE-EINSTEIN CONDENSATION
  • SEMICONDUCTOR MICROCAVITY
  • QUANTIZED VORTICES
  • EXCITON POLARITONS
  • DYNAMICS

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