Half-skyrmion spin textures in polariton microcavities
Abstract
We study the polarization dynamics of a spatially expanding polariton condensate under nonresonant linearly polarized optical excitation. The spatially and temporally resolved polariton emission reveals the formation of non-trivial spin textures in the form of a quadruplet polarization pattern both in the linear and circular Stokes parameters, and an octuplet in the diagonal Stokes parameter. The continuous rotation of the polariton pseudospin vector through the condensate due to TE-TM splitting exhibits an ordered pattern of half-skyrmions associated with a half-integer topological number. A theoretical model based on a driven-dissipative Gross-Pitaevskii equation coupled with an exciton reservoir describes the dynamics of the nontrivial spin textures through the optical spin-Hall effect.
Citation
Cilibrizzi , P , Sigurdsson , H , Liew , T C H , Ohadi , H , Askitopoulos , A , Brodbeck , S , Schneider , C , Shelykh , I A , Höfling , S , Ruostekoski , J & Lagoudakis , P 2016 , ' Half-skyrmion spin textures in polariton microcavities ' , Physical Review. B, Condensed matter and materials physics , vol. 94 , no. 4 , 045315 . https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.94.045315
Publication
Physical Review. B, Condensed matter and materials physics
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1098-0121Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2016 American Physical Society. This work is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created, accepted version manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.94.045315
Description
P.C., S.H. and P.L. acknowledge support by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council of UK through the \Hybrid Polaritonics" Program Grant (Project EP/M025330/1). H.S. and I.A.S acknowledge the support from Rannis projects BOFEHYSS and Singaporean Ministry of Education under AcRF Tier 2 grant MOE2015-T2-1-055. I.A.S. thanks 5-100 program of Russian Federal Government.Collections
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