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: London Nature Publishing Group UK 09.08.2018; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/766/119/2791; 639/766/119/999; Burning; Condensates; Condensation; Depletion; Energy; Equilibrium; Excitons; Experiments; Filamentation; Hole burning; Humanities and Social Sciences; Lasers; Lifetime; multidisciplinary; Optical pumping; Physics; Polaritons; Reservoirs; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); 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. The mechanism for exciton-polariton condensation in the presence of an incoherent reservoir has been long debated. Here the authors demonstrate the role of the spatial hole burning in condensation of long‐lived exciton polaritons by imaging the condensates in a single-shot excitation regime.