Topological order and thermal equilibrium in polariton condensates
Authors
Caputo, DavideBallarini, Dario
Dagvadorj, Galbadrakh
Sanchez Munoz, Carlos
De Giorgi, Milena
Dominici, Lorenzo
West, Kenneth
Pfeiffer, Loren N.
Gigli, Giuseppe
Laussy, Fabrice P.
Szymanska, Marzena H.
Sanvitto, Daniele
Issue Date
2017-12-04
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We report the observation of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition for a 2D gas of exciton-polaritons, and through the joint measurement of the first-order coherence both in space and time we bring compelling evidence of a thermodynamic equilibrium phase transition in an otherwise open driven/dissipative system. This is made possible thanks to long polariton lifetimes in high-quality samples with small disorder and in a reservoir-free region far away from the excitation spot, that allow topological ordering to prevail. The observed quasi-ordered phase, characteristic for an equilibrium 2D bosonic gas, with a decay of coherence in both spatial and temporal domains with the same algebraic exponent, is reproduced with numerical solutions of stochastic dynamics, proving that the mechanism of pairing of the topological defects (vortices) is responsible for the transition to the algebraic order. Finally, measurements in the weak-coupling regime confirm that polariton condensates are fundamentally different from photon lasers and constitute genuine quantum degenerate macroscopic states.Citation
Caputo D., Ballarini D., Dagvadorj G., Sánchez Muñoz C., De Giorgi M., Dominici L., West K., Pfeiffer LN., Gigli G., Laussy FP., Szymańska MH., Sanvitto D. (2018) Topological order and equilibrium in polariton condensates, Nature Materials, 17(2) pp. 145-151. doi: 10.1038/nmat5039Publisher
Nature publishing groupJournal
Nature MaterialsDOI
10.1038/nmat5039Additional Links
https://www.nature.com/articles/nmat5039Type
Journal articleLanguage
enDescription
This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Nature publishing group in Nature Materials on 04/12/2017 available online: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat5039 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.ISSN
1476-1122ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1038/nmat5039
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