Abstract

Microcavity polaritons are two-dimensional bosonic fluids with strong nonlinearities, composed of coupled photonic and electronic excitations. In their condensed form, they display quantum hydrodynamic features similar to atomic Bose-Einstein condensates, such as long-range coherence, superfluidity and quantized vorticity. Here we report the unique phenomenology that is observed when a pulse of light impacts the polariton vacuum: the fluid which is suddenly created does not splash but instead coheres into a very bright spot. The real-space collapse into a sharp peak is at odd with the repulsive interactions of polaritons and their positive mass, suggesting that an unconventional mechanism is at play. Our modelling devises a possible explanation in the self-trapping due to a local heating of the crystal lattice, that can be described as a collective polaron formed by a polariton condensate. These observations hint at the polariton fluid dynamics in conditions of extreme intensities and ultrafast times.

Autore Pugliese

• Gigli Giuseppe

Tutti gli autori

• Dominici L. , Petrov M. , Matuszewski M. , Ballarini D. , De Giorgi M. , Colas D. , Cancellieri E. , Silva Fernández B. , Bramati A. , Gigli G. , Kavokin A. , Laussy F. , Sanvitto D.

Titolo volume/Rivista

NATURE COMMUNICATIONS

Anno di pubblicazione

2015

ISSN

2041-1723

ISBN

Non Disponibile

Numero di citazioni Wos

Nessuna citazione

Ultimo Aggiornamento Citazioni

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Numero di citazioni Scopus

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Ultimo Aggiornamento Citazioni

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Settori ERC

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Codici ASJC

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