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Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics

Long phase coherence times in the microcavity polariton condensate

A. Love, Dmitry N. Krizhanovskii, David M. Whittaker, R. Bouchekioua, D. Sanvitto, S. Al Rizeiqi, Maurice S. Skolnick, P. R. Eastham, R. André, Le Si Dang

Published May 4, 2008• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We observe high coherence times of polariton condensates up to 200 ps and build up of second order coherence. Interactions between the condensate and the thermal reservoir of polaritons determine the coherence properties.
DOI
10.1109/qels.2008.4553105

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Second-order time correlation measurements with a temporal resolution better than 3 ps were performed on a CdTe microcavity where spontaneous Bose-Einstein condensation is observed. After the laser pulse, the nonresonantly excited thermal polariton population relaxes into a coherent polariton condensate. Photon statistics of the light emitted by the microcavity evidences a clear phase transition from the thermal state to a coherent state, which occurs within 3.2 ps after the onset of stimulated scattering. Following this very fast transition, we show that the emission possesses a very high coherence that persists for more than 100 ps after the build-up of the condensate.
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We report an experimental study of the spontaneous spatial and temporal coherence of polariton condensates generated in the optical parametric oscillator configuration, below and at the parametric threshold, and as a function of condensate area. Above the threshold we obtain very long coherence times (up to 3 ns) and a spatial coherence extending over the entire condensate (40 μm). The very long coherence time and its dependence on condensate area and pump power reflect the suppression of polariton-polariton interactions by an effect equivalent to motional narrowing.
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