title: Dynamic Stark effect in strongly coupled microcavity exciton polaritons.
abstract: We present experimental observations of a nonresonant dynamic Stark shift in strongly coupled microcavity quantum well exciton polaritons--a system which provides a rich variety of solid-state collective phenomena. The Stark effect is demonstrated in a GaAs/AlGaAs system at 10 K by femtosecond pump-probe measurements, with the blueshift approaching the meV scale for a pump fluence of 2  mJ cm(-2) and 50 meV red detuning, in good agreement with theory. The energy level structure of the strongly coupled polariton Rabi doublet remains unaffected by the blueshift. The demonstrated effect should allow generation of ultrafast density-independent potentials and imprinting well-defined phase profiles on polariton condensates, providing a powerful tool for manipulation of these condensates, similar to dipole potentials in cold-atom systems.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Centre for Quantum Information and Quantum Control, and Institute for Optical Sciences, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A7, Canada.
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hayat
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lange
authors.forename: Lee A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Rozema
authors.forename: Ardavan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Darabi
authors.forename: Henry M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: van Driel
authors.forename: Aephraim M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Steinberg
authors.forename: Bryan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Nelsen
authors.forename: David W
authors.initials: DW
authors.lastname: Snoke
authors.forename: Loren N
authors.initials: LN
authors.lastname: Pfeiffer
authors.forename: Kenneth W
authors.initials: KW
authors.lastname: West