title: Optical traps for dark excitons.
abstract: We propose a mechanism for optical trapping of dark excitons by linearly polarized unabsorbed standing waves, with a potential depth of the order of a few meV. Since this trapping, based on carrier exchanges with virtual excitons coupled to unabsorbed photons, equally acts on bright and dark states, Bose-Einstein condensation of excitons--which occurs in dark states--must appear as dark spots in a cloud of bright excitons, at the trap potential minima, when the temperature decreases.
authors.affiliation: Institut des NanoSciences de Paris, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, CNRS, 4 place Jussieu, 75005 Paris.
authors.forename: Monique
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Combescot
authors.forename: Michael G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Moore
authors.forename: Carlo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Piermarocchi