A Room-temperature Spin-polarized Polariton Laser
Abstract
In the field of spin-controlled semiconductor lasers, massive effort has been focused upon materials with long spin relaxation times (~ns). In contrast, we demonstrate room-temperature spin-polarized ultrafast pulsed lasing in InGaAs quantum wells (~10 ps) embedded within a GaAs microcavity. The microcavity studied here is similar to vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSEL) used in optical communication. Unlike a VCSEL, the present polariton laser has nonlinear output and energy shifts owing to the mixing of the free-carrier polarization and cavity light field. At room temperature, we observe features resembling those in exciton-polariton condensates at cryogenic temperatures, including the spontaneous build-up of spatial coherence, macroscopic occupation, and spin polarization. Our results should stimulate activities to exploit spin-orbit interaction and many-body effects for fundamental studies of quantum light-matter fluids and developments of spin-dependent optoelectronic devices.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1310.0882,
title = {A Room-temperature Spin-polarized Polariton Laser},
author = {Feng-kuo Hsu and Yi-Shan Lee and Sheng-Di Lin and Chih-Wei Lai},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1310.0882},
year = {2015}
}