title: Ultrafast Stark-induced polaritonic switches.
abstract: A laser pulse, several meV red detuned from the excitonic line of a quantum well, has been shown to induce an almost instantaneous and rigid shift of the lower and upper polariton branches. Here we demonstrate that through this shift ultrafast all-optical control of the polariton population in a semiconductor microcavity should be achievable. In the proposed setup, a Stark field is used to bring the lower polariton branch in or out of resonance with a quasiresonant continuous-wave laser, thereby favoring or inhibiting the injection of polaritons into the cavity. Moreover, we show that this technique allows for the implementation of optical switches with extremely high repetition rates.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Ecole Normale Supérieure et CNRS, Paris 75005, France and University of Sheffield, Sheffield S37RH, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Cancellieri
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 and Department of Electrical Engineering, Technion, Haifa 32000, Israel.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hayat
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: A M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Steinberg
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Ecole Normale Supérieure et CNRS, Paris 75005, France.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Giacobino
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Ecole Normale Supérieure et CNRS, Paris 75005, France.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bramati