Polaritons are quasi-particles that originate from the coupling of light with matter and that demonstrate quan- tum phenomena at the many-particle mesoscopic level, such as Bose-Einstein condensation and superfluidity. A highly sought and long-time missing feature of polaritons is a genuine quantum manifestation of their dynamics at the single- particle level. Although they are conceptually perceived as entangled states and theoretical proposals abound for an explicit manifestation of their single-particle properties, so far their behavior has remained fully accounted for by clas- sical and mean-field theories. We report the first experimental demonstration of a genuinely quantum state of the microcavity polariton field, by swapping a photon for a polariton in a two-photon entangled state generated by para- metric downconversion. When bringing this single-polariton quantum state in contact with a polariton condensate, we observe a disentangling with the external photon. This manifestation of a polariton quantum state involving a single quantum unlocks new possibilities for quantum information processing with interacting bosons.
First observation of the quantized exciton-polariton field and effect of interactions on a single polariton / Cuevas, Á., López Carreño, J.C., Silva, B., De Giorgi, M., Suárez-Forero, D.G., Sánchez Muñoz, C., Fieramosca, A., Cardano, F., Marrucci, L., Tasco, V., Biasiol, G., del Valle, E., Dominici, L., Ballarini, D., Gigli, G., Mataloni, P., Laussy, F.P., Sciarrino, F., Sanvitto, D.. - In: SCIENCE ADVANCES. - ISSN 2375-2548. - 4:4(2018), p. eaao6814. [10.1126/sciadv.aao6814]
First observation of the quantized exciton-polariton field and effect of interactions on a single polariton
Cardano, Filippo;Marrucci, Lorenzo;
2018
Abstract
Polaritons are quasi-particles that originate from the coupling of light with matter and that demonstrate quan- tum phenomena at the many-particle mesoscopic level, such as Bose-Einstein condensation and superfluidity. A highly sought and long-time missing feature of polaritons is a genuine quantum manifestation of their dynamics at the single- particle level. Although they are conceptually perceived as entangled states and theoretical proposals abound for an explicit manifestation of their single-particle properties, so far their behavior has remained fully accounted for by clas- sical and mean-field theories. We report the first experimental demonstration of a genuinely quantum state of the microcavity polariton field, by swapping a photon for a polariton in a two-photon entangled state generated by para- metric downconversion. When bringing this single-polariton quantum state in contact with a polariton condensate, we observe a disentangling with the external photon. This manifestation of a polariton quantum state involving a single quantum unlocks new possibilities for quantum information processing with interacting bosons.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
