It is shown that a system of excitons in a high magnetic field is similar to a weakly nonideal Bose gas and is capable of forming the Bose-Einstein condensate as well as a superfluid state even at a relatively high temperature. The stability of the Bose condensate due to an essential decrease of the interaction between excitons and an increase of their binding energy in a high magnetic field is established. The possible observable effects of the Bose condensate and the interaction of light with the Bose-Einstein condensate of excitons is studied. The appearance of the Bose condensate in a broad range of the densities significantly changes the spectrum of the coupled excitons and photons. The dielectric theory of polaritons which accounts for the new excitation spectrum predicts a number of interesting phenomena.
It is shown that a system of excitons in a high magnetic field is similar to a weakly nonideal Bose gas and is capable of forming the Bose-Einstein condensate as well as a superfluid state even at a relatively high temperature. The stability of the Bose condensate due to an essential decrease of the interaction between excitons and an increase of their binding energy in a high magnetic field is established. The possible observable effects of the Bose condensate and the interaction of light with the Bose-Einstein condensate of excitons is studied. The appearance of the Bose condensate in a broad range of the densities significantly changes the spectrum of the coupled excitons and photons. The dielectric theory of polaritons which accounts for the new excitation spectrum predicts a number of interesting phenomena.
Introduction. Polaritons and Semiconductor Microcavities As we have mentioned previously, BEC of excitons or biexcitons and lasing can be seen as two limits of the same theory. Lasing occurs in the case of strong electron-photon coupling (recombination rate fast compared with interparticle-scattering rate) while excitonic BEC occurs in the case of weak electron-photon coupling (recombination rate slow compared with the interparticle-scattering rate.) A laser can be seen as a Bose condensate in which the long-range phase coherence exists in the photon states [1], while in the exciton condensate the coherence exists in the electronic states. This is one of the reasons for some of the confusing debates in the early history of excitonic Bose condensation – in many systems there is not a sharp distinction between an excitonic condensate and supperradiance, i.e., luminescence with enhanced intensity due to stimulated emission [2-4]. In the previous chapters, we have so far considered a laser light source only as a source of excitons by means of quantum transitions. In Chapter 6, the laser radiation was taken into account as a given external factor. This chapter is dedicated to phenomena related to a strong and noticeable exciton-photon interaction, when the light significantly influences the energy spectrum of the high-density excitons [5-9]. As we will see, this leads to many fascinating effects related to instabilities. A strong exciton-photon interaction implies a strong polariton effect, in which photon and exciton states are mixed (as in Fig. 1.3). When this mixing is strong, it is not obvious how to define the ground state of the system.
Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) is a thermodynamic phase transition of an interacting Bose gas. Its key signatures are remarkable quantum effects like superfluidity and a phonon-like Bogoliubov excitation spectrum, which have been verified for atomic BECs. In the solid state, BEC of exciton-polaritons has been reported. Polaritons are strongly coupled light-matter quasiparticles in semiconductor microcavities and composite bosons. However, they are subject to dephasing and decay and need external pumping to reach a steady state. Accordingly the polariton BEC is a nonequilibrium process of a degenerate polariton gas in self-equilibrium, but out of equilibrium with the baths it is coupled to and therefore deviates from the thermodynamic phase transition seen in atomic BECs. Here we show that key signatures of BEC can even be observed without fulfilling the self-equilibrium condition in a highly photonic quantum degenerate nonequilibrium system.
Abstract As is known, so far only helium has appeared to be unique quantum liquid which does not solidify and becomes superfluid at low temperature. The situation is dramatically changed in presence of a strong magnetic field such that the distance between the Landau levels exceeds the Coulomb unit of energy. Under the circumstances, the interaction between hydrogenlike atoms in the triplet ground state is strongly anisotropic and pretty weak. For such a Bose gas of hydrogenlike atoms, there is a possibility of forming a Bose condensate and a superfluid state. The importance of the problem is due to the fact that it arises in various areas of physics, especially in astrophysics and physics of semiconductors. In semiconductors, a high density exciton gas is the unique object for the laboratory studies of the extreme states of matter in a ultrastrong magnetic field, where the “atomic” scale of a magnetic field for the hydrogenlike excitons is of the order of a few Tesla, quite realizable in a laboratory.
In a first part, a brief review of some excitonic properties is presented, with the accent put on their relevance with respect to the possibility of Bose-Einstein condensation. In a second part, recent experimental evidence is described, which supports the idea that excitonic particles may form a highly quantum fluid. In Cu20, the analysis of the exciton decay spectrum shows a gradual evolution of the gas from a classical regime at low densities up to a strongly degenerate one at high densities, with a chemical potential µ ~ 0. In CuCl excitons are unstable against formation of molecules (biexcitons). It is possible to generate directly a high density gas of biexcitons with momentum K ~ 0 by giant two-photon absorption. At low excitation, the observed molecular emission is in agreement with Maxwell -Boltzmann statistics. At high densities, strong deviations occur. In particular, the appearance of a sharp emission line is attributed to the presence of a Bose-Einstein condensate of excitonic molecules.
We consider quantum phase transitions in a system of bright dipolar excitons which can form bound pairs (dipolar biexcitons). The biexciton energy is tuned from negative to positive values through the scattering threshold. At sufficiently large density an exciton superfluid transforms into a superfluid of biexcitons. With the average relative momenta of excitons in the pairs being beyond the light cone, the transition is accompanied by a reduction of the photoluminescence intensity. Effective magnetic fields due to the long-range exchange splitting of exciton states shift the position of the gap in the elementary excitation spectrum to a circle of degenerate minima in the $\mathbit{k}$ space. Closing the gap results in the formation of exciton stripes polarized linearly along the direction of their translational symmetry. In the biexciton energy vs density phase diagram the novel phase intervenes between the dark biexciton and radiative exciton superfluids. We conclude that formation of a BCS-like biexciton condensate induces correlated alignment of the effective magnetic fields and excitonic spins. We outline important differences in the predicted mechanism from the phenomenon of spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensation.
Abstract Superfluidity, first discovered in liquid 4He, is closely related to Bose–Einstein condensation (BEC) phenomenon. However, even at zero temperature, a fraction of the quantum liquid is excited out of the condensate into higher momentum states via interaction-induced fluctuations—the phenomenon of quantum depletion. Quantum depletion of atomic BECs in thermal equilibrium is well understood theoretically but is difficult to measure. This measurement is even more challenging in driven-dissipative exciton–polariton condensates, since their non-equilibrium nature is predicted to suppress quantum depletion. Here, we observe quantum depletion of a high-density exciton–polariton condensate by detecting the spectral branch of elementary excitations populated by this process. Analysis of this excitation branch shows that quantum depletion of exciton–polariton condensates can closely follow or strongly deviate from the equilibrium Bogoliubov theory, depending on the exciton fraction in an exciton polariton. Our results reveal beyond mean-field effects of exciton–polariton interactions and call for a deeper understanding of the relationship between equilibrium and non-equilibrium BECs.