Abstract
Microcavity exciton polaritons emerge as a versatile platform for nonlinear optical effects thanks to the unique dispersion which enables a manifold of energy and wavevector conserved processes. However, efficient generation of parametric emission while preserving coherence remains challenging mainly due to lack of strong parametric interactions compared to simultaneous interaction with relaxation channels. Herein, we report highly efficient parametric emission with sub-1-meV linewidth from quantum confined microcavities, enabling the first observation of strong phase coherence between the two parametric species. Quantum size effect enabled by surface disorder in confined systems acts as the microscopic mechanism for the observed anomalous enhancement of parametric emission, playing important role in triggering exotic parametric interactions for microcavity polaritons. Finally, we demonstrate the emergence of polariton supersolid phase at room temperature in a coherent parametric oscillator, characterized by periodic density modulation in real space that indicates the breaking of translational symmetry.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
All data to evaluate the conclusions are present in the manuscript, and the Supplementary Information. Raw data are available from the corresponding authors upon request.
References
Carusotto, I. & Ciuti, C. Quantum fluids of light. Rev. Mod. Phys. 85, 299–366 (2013).
Deng, H., Haug, H. & Yamamoto, Y. Exciton-polariton Bose-Einstein condensation. Rev. Mod. Phys. 82, 1489–1537 (2010).
Sanvitto, D. & Kéna-Cohen, S. The road towards polaritonic devices. Nat. Mater. 15, 1061–1073 (2016).
Ghosh, S. et al. Microcavity exciton polaritons at room temperature. Photon. Insights 1 (2022).
Savvidis, P. G. et al. Angle-resonant stimulated polariton amplifier. Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 1547–1550 (2000).
Messin, G. et al. Parametric Polariton Amplification in Semiconductor Microcavities. Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 127403 (2001).
Saba, M. et al. High-temperature ultrafast polariton parametric amplification in semiconductor microcavities. Nature 414, 731–735 (2001).
Diederichs, C. et al. Parametric oscillation in vertical triple microcavities. Nature 440, 904–907 (2006).
Lecomte, T. et al. Optical parametric oscillation in one-dimensional microcavities. Phys. Rev. B 87, 155302 (2013).
Xie, W. et al. Room-temperature polariton parametric scattering driven by a one-dimensional polariton condensate. Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 166401 (2012).
Wu, J. et al. Nonlinear parametric scattering of exciton polaritons in perovskite microcavities. Nano Lett 21, 3120–3126 (2021).
Chen, F. et al. Femtosecond dynamics of a polariton bosonic cascade at room temperature. Nano Lett 22, 2023–2029 (2022).
Chen, F. et al. Buildup dynamics of room-temperature polariton condensation. Phys. Rev. B 106, L020301 (2022).
Tian, C. et al. Relaxation oscillations of an exciton–polariton condensate driven by parametric scattering. Nano Lett 22, 3026–3032 (2022).
Ye, Z. et al. Ultrafast intermode parametric scattering dynamics in room-temperature polariton condensates. Phys. Rev. B 107, L060303 (2023).
Sawicki, K. et al. Polariton lasing and energy-degenerate parametric scattering in non-resonantly driven coupled planar microcavities. Nanophotonics 10, 2421–2429 (2021).
Romanelli, M., Leyder, C., Karr, J. P., Giacobino, E. & Bramati, A. Four wave mixing oscillation in a semiconductor microcavity: generation of two correlated polariton populations. Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 106401 (2007).
Romanelli, M., Karr, J. P., Leyder, C., Giacobino, E. & Bramati, A. Two-mode squeezing in polariton four-wave mixing. Phys. Rev. B 82, 155313 (2010).
Ardizzone, V. et al. Bunching visibility of optical parametric emission in a semiconductor microcavity. Phys. Rev. B 86, 041301 (2012).
Kadau, H. et al. Observing the Rosensweig instability of a quantum ferrofluid. Nature 530, 194–197 (2016).
Tanzi, L. et al. Supersolid symmetry breaking from compressional oscillations in a dipolar quantum gas. Nature 574, 382–385 (2019).
Nigro, D. et al. Supersolidity of polariton condensates in photonic crystal waveguides. Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 056002 (2025).
Trypogeorgos, D. et al. Emerging supersolidity in photonic-crystal polariton condensates. Nature 639, 337–341 (2025).
Ardizzone, V. et al. Formation and control of Turing patterns in a coherent quantum fluid. Sci. Rep. 3, 3016 (2013).
Muszynski., M. et al. Observation of a supersolid phase in a spin-orbit coupled exciton-polariton Bose-Einstein condensate. arXiv 2407.02406, [cond-mat.mes-hall] (2024).
Sanvitto, D. et al. Spatial structure and stability of the macroscopically occupied polariton state in the microcavity optical parametric oscillator. Phys. Rev. B 73, 241308 (2006).
Su, R. et al. Perovskite semiconductors for room-temperature exciton-polaritonics. Nat. Mater. 20, 1315–1324 (2021).
Tao, R. et al. Halide perovskites enable polaritonic XY spin Hamiltonian at room temperature. Nat. Mater. 21, 761–766 (2022).
Wu, X. et al. Exciton polariton condensation from bound states in the continuum at room temperature. Nat. Commun. 15, 3345 (2024).
Kędziora, M. et al. Predesigned perovskite crystal waveguides for room-temperature exciton–polariton condensation and edge lasing. Nat. Mater. 23, 1515–1522 (2024).
Shang, Q. et al. Role of the Exciton–Polariton in a Continuous-Wave Optically Pumped CsPbBr3 Perovskite Laser. Nano Lett 20, 6636–6643 (2020).
Cristofolini, P., Hatzopoulos, Z., Savvidis, P. G. & Baumberg, J. J. Generation of Quantized Polaritons below the Condensation Threshold. Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 067401 (2018).
Kaitouni, R. I. et al. Engineering the spatial confinement of exciton polaritons in semiconductors. Phys. Rev. B 74, 155311 (2006).
Song, J. et al. Room-temperature continuous-wave pumped exciton polariton condensation in a perovskite microcavity. Sci. Adv. 11, eadr1652 (2025).
Moller, C. K. Crystal Structure and Photoconductivity of Caesium Plumbohalides. Nature 182, 1436–1436 (1958).
Paraïso, T. K. et al. Enhancement of microcavity polariton relaxation under confinement. Phys. Rev. B 79, 045319 (2009).
Roumpos, G., Nitsche, W. H., Höfling, S., Forchel, A. & Yamamoto, Y. Gain-Induced Trapping of Microcavity Exciton Polariton Condensates. Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 12640 (2010).
Klaas, M. et al. Evolution of Temporal Coherence in Confined Exciton-Polariton Condensates. Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 017401 (2018).
Wurdack, M. et al. Enhancing Ground-State Population and Macroscopic Coherence of Room-Temperature WS2 Polaritons through Engineered Confinement. Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 147402 (2022).
Zhao, J. et al. Nonlinear polariton parametric emission in an atomically thin semiconductor based microcavity. Nat. Nanotechnol. 17, 396–402 (2022).
Boyd, R. W. Nonlinear optics. 4. edn, Academic Press, (2019).
Bosenberg, W. R., Drobshoff, A., Alexander, J. I., Myers, L. E. & Byer, R. L. 93% pump depletion, 3.5-W continuous-wave, singly resonant optical parametric oscillator. Opt. Lett. 21, 1336–1338 (1996).
Marhic, M. E., Wong, K. K. Y., Ho, M. C. & Kazovsky, L. G. 92% pump depletion in a continuous-wave one-pump fiber optical parametric amplifier. Opt. Lett. 26, 620–622 (2001).
Kundermann, S. et al. Coherent Control of Polariton Parametric Scattering in Semiconductor Microcavities. Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 107402 (2003).
Huynh, A. et al. Polariton Parametric Amplifier Pump Dynamics in the Coherent Regime. Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 106401 (2003).
Shan, H. et al. Brightening of a dark monolayer semiconductor via strong light-matter coupling in a cavity. Nat. Commun. 13, 3001 (2022).
Thunert, M. et al. Cavity polariton condensate in a disordered environment. Phys. Rev. B 93, 064203 (2016).
Luo, Y. et al. Manipulating nonlinear exciton polaritons in an atomically-thin semiconductor with artificial potential landscapes. Light Sci. Appl. 12, 220 (2023).
Ferrier, L. et al. Interactions in confined polariton condensates. Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 126401 (2011).
Bose, S. & Ayyub, P. A review of finite size effects in quasi-zero dimensional superconductors. Rep. Prog. Phys. 77, 116503 (2014).
Li, W. H., Yang, C. C., Tsao, F. C. & Lee, K. C. Quantum size effects on the superconducting parameters of zero-dimensional Pb nanoparticles. Phys. Rev. B 68, 184507 (2003).
Guo, Y. et al. Superconductivity modulated by quantum size effects. Science 306, 1915–1917 (2004).
Bose, S. et al. Observation of shell effects in superconducting nanoparticles of Sn. Nature Materials 9, 550–554 (2010).
Polimeno, L. et al. Room temperature polariton condensation from whispering gallery modes in CsPbBr3 microplatelets. Adv. Mater. 36, 2312131 (2024).
Peng, K. et al. Room-temperature polariton quantum fluids in halide perovskites. Nat. Commun. 13, 7388 (2022).
Acknowledgements
Q.Z. acknowledges funding support from National Key R&D Program of China (2024YFA1208203), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U23A2076), Beijing Natural Science Foundation (1262028) and the Open Research Fund of State Key Laboratory of Quantum Functional Materials (QFM2025KF001). S. G. acknowledges funding support from the Guangdong Province Foreign Experts Project (Flexible Talent Introduction) Fund (2025A1313010019), Shenzhen Specially Appointed Positions (2025TC0140), and University Development Fund from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (UDF01003913). X. L. acknowledges funding support from the National Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars of China (No. 22325301), and the National Key R&D Program of China (2023YFA1507002). The authors acknowledge helpful discussions with Daniele Sanvitto, Hai Son Nguyen, and Dario Gerace.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
Q.Z. and X.D. conceived the project. S.G. performed theoretical analysis. Q.Z. and X.L. designed the experiments. X.D. and J.S. performed optical measurements. X.D. and S.G. performed statistical analysis. S.G. and C.Y. performed theoretical modelling and calculations. J.S. and C.Z. grew the perovskite crystal and X.D. fabricated the DBR microcavity. K.L. and X.Z. performed STEM characterization. Q.J. conducted XRD measurement. X.D. and C.Z. performed other general characterizations. X.D., Q.Z., S.G., J.S., and C.L. analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript with input from all authors. Q.Z. supervised the whole project.
Corresponding authors
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Peer review
Peer review information
Nature Communications thanks Anton Samusev and the other, anonymous, reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work. A peer review file is available.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary information
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
Deng, X., Ghosh, S., Song, J. et al. Harnessing highly efficient coherent polariton parametric emission in quantum confined perovskite microcavities. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-71322-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-71322-1
