Single-shot condensation of exciton polaritons and the hole burning effect

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 9; no. 1; pp. 2944 - 9
• Main Authors: Estrecho, E, Gao, T, Bobrovska, N, Fraser, M D, Steger, M, Pfeiffer, L, West, K, Liew, T C H, Matuszewski, M, Snoke, D W, Truscott, A G, Ostrovskaya, E A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Nature Publishing Group 09.08.2018; Nature Publishing Group UK; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: Burning; Condensates; Condensation; Depletion; Energy; Equilibrium; Excitons; Experiments; Filamentation; Hole burning; Lasers; Lifetime; Optical pumping; Physics; Polaritons; Reservoirs; Science; Shot; Variation; Vortices
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05349-4

A bosonic condensate of exciton polaritons in a semiconductor microcavity is a macroscopic quantum state subject to pumping and decay. The fundamental nature of this driven-dissipative condensate is still under debate. Here, we gain an insight into spontaneous condensation by imaging long-lifetime exciton polaritons in a high-quality inorganic microcavity in a single-shot optical excitation regime, without averaging over multiple condensate realisations. We demonstrate that condensation is strongly influenced by an incoherent reservoir and that the reservoir depletion, the so-called spatial hole burning, is critical for the transition to the ground state. Condensates of photon-like polaritons exhibit strong shot-to-shot fluctuations and density filamentation due to the effective self-focusing associated with the reservoir depletion. In contrast, condensates of exciton-like polaritons display smoother spatial density distributions and are second-order coherent. Our observations show that the single-shot measurements offer a unique opportunity to study fundamental properties of non-equilibrium condensation in the presence of a reservoir.