Year: 2020
Type: article
Abstract: It is widely assumed that photons cannot be manipulated using electric or magnetic fields.Even though hybridization of photons with electronic polarization to form exciton-polaritons has paved the way to a number of groundbreaking experiments in semiconductor microcavities, the neutral bosonic nature of these quasiparticles has severely limited their response to external gauge fields.Here, we demonstrate polariton acceleration by external electric and magnetic fields in the presence of nonperturbative coupling between polaritons and itinerant electrons, leading to formation of new quasiparticles termed polaron-polaritons.We identify the generation of electron density gradients by the applied fields to be primarily responsible for inducing a gradient in polariton energy, which in turn leads to acceleration along a direction determined by the applied fields.Remarkably, we also observe that different polarization components of the polaritons can be accelerated in opposite directions when the electrons are in ν ¼ 1 integer quantum Hall state.
Source: Physical Review X
Institutions: ETH Zurich, Laboratory for Solid State Physics
Language: English
Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $4,200
OpenAlex ID: W2987641024