Fig. 1: Optical setup and excitation of a polariton condensate.
From: Realization of all-optical vortex switching in exciton-polariton condensates
a Sketch of a planar quantum-well (QW) based semiconductor microcavity with distributed-Bragg reflectors (DBR) at top and bottom. b Sketch of the energy versus in-plane momentum dispersions of the lower (LPB) and upper (UPB) polariton branches. As indicated in a, the inactive reservoir (nI) is excited by an off-resonant continuous wave (CW) ring-shaped pump beam and an off-resonant Gaussian-shaped control pulse. Subsequently, relaxation into the active reservoir (nA) and from there stimulated scattering into the condensate (Ψ) at the bottom of the LPB occur. c Three-dimensional sketch of the total optically induced external potential experienced by the coherent polariton condensate when the system is optically pumped as sketched in a.
