Dynamics of Spin Polarization in Tilted Polariton Rings

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Dynamics of Spin Polarization in Tilted Polariton Rings Dynamics of spin polarization in tilted polariton rings S. Mukherjee,1 V. K. Kozin,2, 3 A. V. Nalitov,3, 4, 5 I. A. Shelykh,2, 3 Z. Sun,1, 6 D. M. Myers,1 B. Ozden,1, 7 J. Beaumariage,1 M. Steger,1 L. N. Pfeiffer,8 K. West,8 and D. W. Snoke1 1Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA 2Science Institute, University of Iceland, Dunhagi-3, IS-107 Reykjavik, Iceland 3ITMO University, St. Petersburg 197101, Russia 4Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Wolverhampton, Wulfruna St, Wolverhampton WV1 1LY, UK 5Institut Pascal, PHOTON-N2, Universit´e Clermont Auvergne, CNRS, SIGMA Clermont, Institut Pascal, F-63000 Clermont-Ferrand, France. 6State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China 7Department of Physics and Engineering, Penn State Abington, Abington, PA 19001, USA 8Department of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA We have observed the effect of pseudo magnetic field originating from the polaritonic analog of spin-orbit coupling (TE−TM splitting) on a polariton condensate in a ring shaped microcavity. The effect gives rise to a stable four-leaf pattern around the ring as seen from the linear polarization measurements of the condensate photoluminescence. This pattern is found to originate from the in- terplay of the cavity potential, energy relaxation and TE-TM splitting in the ring. Our observations are compared to the dissipative one-dimensional spinor Gross-Pitaevskii equation with the TE-TM splitting energy which shows good qualitative agreement. I. INTRODUCTION spin Hall effect is realized by actual transport of po- laritons while the spin of the polaritons precess as they move. Over a decade has passed since the first demon- stration of Bose-Einstein condensation of exciton- In this paper we address how the two spinor com- polaritons in a semiconductor microcavity [1, 2]. It ponents of a gas of highly excited trapped polaritons stands out as a unique platform for exploring physics evolve following a quench in a long lifetime (≈ 200 of out of equilibrium systems. Recent reports on the ps) microcavity. The trapping potential is created observation of thermal equilibration [3, 4] on one by patterning the top mirror of the GaAs microcav- hand have triggered interest in studying equilibrium ity in the shape of a ring. The polaritons in the physics in non-hermitian systems, while on the other ring maintain the same long lifetime (≈ 200 ps), have shown promise for making devices based on po- high quality (Q > 105) and low disorder as in the lariton condensates which operate near equilibrium. two-dimensional planar microcavity used previously Such a feat been achieved in microcavities with Q [3, 5, 11{13]. With the presence of a unidirectional > 105, allowing several collision events between po- gradient in the energy of the polaritons, the circular laritons to distribute energy and thermalize in their symmetry of the ring is broken, giving rise to a rigid lifetime [3{6]. rotor potential. Combined with a momentum depen- These systems also naturally offer a way for de- dent effective magnetic field in the trap, this results scribing a pseudo-spin 1/2 Bose gas [7]. The order in intrinsic optical spin Hall effect as the polaritons parameter of a polariton condensate is described by are transported to the region with the lowest energy a two-component complex valued spinor, which is in the trap. We map the spin of the condensed po- connected to the electric polarization of the polari- laritons in the ring using space- and time- resolved tons in the microcavity [8]. In the presence of a spin-polarized spectroscopy. non-aligned magnetic field the spin of the polaritons The rings are fabricated by etching the top dis- is precessing similarly to the spin of an electron in tributed Bragg reflector (DBR) of this microcavity a magnetic field. It turns out that for a quantum in the shape of rings of width (the difference of the well embedded inside a semiconductor microcavity, outer and the inner radii) 15 µm and radius (aver- a small but non-negligible momentum dependent ef- age of outer and inner radii) 50 µm. Further details fective magnetic field is present which lies in the may be found in the previous papers [13{15]. Across plane of the quantum well. This has been used to the typical dimensions of the ring, the thickness of realize a polaritonic analog of extrinsic [9] as well as the microcavity varies which leads to a cavity energy intrinsic [10] spin Hall effect. In contrast to the elec- gradient (≈ 7−9 meV/mm). The cavity gradient ef- tronic systems where the spin Hall effect gives rise fect is similar to an artificial gravity for the polari- to a spin current and no mass transport, the optical tons making the rings look tilted on the potential 2 energy plane. Due to the analogy to gravity, here The rate of energy drop of the polaritons measures we will refer to the point of highest potential energy the rate at which the exciton cloud decays. By the as the \top" of the ring, and the point of lower po- time the polaritons arrive at the bottom of the ring tential energy, on the opposite side of the ring, as trap it has already undergone considerable energy re- the \bottom". The effect of the artificial gravity on laxation (≈ 2 meV). The energy- and time- resolved the spin-polarized polaritons have been theoretically image from the bottom in Fig. 2 (c) shows that as studied in Ref. [16]. the occupation density of the polaritons increases, the spectral linewidth of the emission narrows indi- cating build up of coherence in the bottom of the II. EXPERIMENT trap. We have combined the streak images from the top and bottom of the ring for comparison in Fig. 2 (c). In Fig. 2 (a) and (b) we show spatially and tem- The top of the rings are non-resonantly pumped porally resolved energy and linewidth of the emission (Epump ≈ 1710 meV which is at least 100 meV from the full ring. From these plots we infer that the higher than the energy of the lower branch polari- spatial coherence extends at most to one-third of the tons at the point of excitation) with a mode-locked ring circumference at any given point in time, which Ti:sapphire laser with a pulse repetition rate of 76 is signaled by the energy locking of the emission. At MHz, a pulse width of ≈ 2 ps, a spot size of ≈ 15 µm ◦ late times the energy of the emission approaches the on the sample and incident at an angle of ≈ 45 from local, low density kjj = 0 lower polariton energy. the plane of the sample with more than 90% linear polarization. Due to the high angle injection, the We resolved the polarization of the PL from the pump spot is not circular on the plane of the sam- ring by performing a full Stokes vector measurement ple and creates asymmetry in the direction of the (S0, S1, S2, S3) using combinations of half or quar- polaritons streaming from the pump spot. Photolu- ter waveplate and a linear polarizer. The measure- minescence (PL) from the rings was collected using ment was done on the collimated signal just after the a microscope objective with a numerical aperture microscope objective. The transmission axis of the (NA) of 0.40 and imaged onto the entrance slit of polarizer was chosen to be vertical in the lab frame a spectrometer. The image was then sent through and was kept fixed throughout the experiment. This the spectrometer either to a standard charged cou- was done to remove the polarization sensitivity of pled device (CCD) chip located at one of the exit the optics downstream in the setup. We used an- ports of the spectrometer for time integrated imag- other half waveplate and a polarizer before the en- ing, or onto a Hamamatsu streak camera located trance slit of the spectrometer to collect all the signal at the other exit port for time-resolved imaging. which didn't get reflected, scattered or absorbed af- All measurements were performed by cooling the ter passing through the optics. For all the measure- microcavity to low temperature (below 10 K) in a ments the orientation of the transmission axis of the continuous-flow cold-finger cryostat. A sketch of the final polarizer was also kept fixed, which removed experimental setup is shown in Fig. 1. the polarization sensitivity of all the optics inside the spectrometer as the light that entered the spec- The non-resonant optical pulse excites a popula- trometer was always at a fixed linear polarization. tion of free electrons and holes at the top of the ring Two images were taken for each individual measure- which undergo rapid thermalization, turning into ex- ment, one with the half waveplate fast axis (placed citons. Excitons further relax down in energy and ◦ just before the final polarizer) at 0 and one with it reach the anti-crossing spectral region of the pho- ◦ at 45 . By adding these two images together, the tonic and excitonic dispersion branches, forming a total contribution of both polarizations (both paral- dense polariton gas (see, for example, Tassone et lel and orthogonal to the final polarizer) were taken al. [17]), which above a critical density undergoes into account. Additional details on the full Stokes non-equilibrium Bose-Einstein condensation. This vector measurement are given in Appendix B. non-equilibrium condensate streams out ballistically from the excitation spot and fills the entire ring, Time-resolved Stokes vector measurements were while also dropping in energy as it moves in the done using the streak camera.
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