Relaxation oscillations in the formation of a polariton condensate.
We report observation of oscillations in the dynamics of a microcavity polariton condensate formed under pulsed nonresonant excitation. While oscillations in a condensate have always been attributed to Josephson mechanisms due to a chemical potential unbalance, here we show that under some localization conditions of the condensate, they may arise from relaxation oscillations, a pervasive classical dynamics that repeatedly provokes the sudden decay of a reservoir, shutting off relaxation as the reservoir is replenished. Using nonresonant excitation, it is thus possible to obtain condensate injection pulses with a record frequency of 0.1 THz.
NNL, Istituto Nanoscienze - Cnr, Via Arnesano, 73100 Lecce, Italy and CBN-IIT, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Via Barsanti, 73010 Lecce, Italy.
Milena
M
De Giorgi
NNL, Istituto Nanoscienze - Cnr, Via Arnesano, 73100 Lecce, Italy and CBN-IIT, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Via Barsanti, 73010 Lecce, Italy.
Dario
D
Ballarini
NNL, Istituto Nanoscienze - Cnr, Via Arnesano, 73100 Lecce, Italy and CBN-IIT, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Via Barsanti, 73010 Lecce, Italy.
Paolo
P
Cazzato
CNRS-LAAS and Univ de Toulouse, 7 avenue du colonel Roche, F-31400 Toulouse, France.
George
G
Deligeorgis
IESL-FORTH, P.O. Box 1527, 71110 Heraklion, Crete, Greece.
Simos I
SI
Tsintzos
IESL-FORTH, P.O. Box 1527, 71110 Heraklion, Crete, Greece and Department of Physics, University of Crete, 71003 Heraklion, Crete, Greece.
Zacharias
Z
Hatzopoulos
IESL-FORTH, P.O. Box 1527, 71110 Heraklion, Crete, Greece and Department of Materials Science and Technology, University of Crete, 71003 Heraklion, Crete, Greece.
Pavlos G
PG
Savvidis
NNL, Istituto Nanoscienze - Cnr, Via Arnesano, 73100 Lecce, Italy and CBN-IIT, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Via Barsanti, 73010 Lecce, Italy and University of Salento, Via Arnesano, 73100 Lecce, Italy.
Giuseppe
G
Gigli
Departamento de Física Teórica de la Materia Condensada and Condensed Matter Physics Center (IFIMAC), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain.
Fabrice P
FP
Laussy
NNL, Istituto Nanoscienze - Cnr, Via Arnesano, 73100 Lecce, Italy and CBN-IIT, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Via Barsanti, 73010 Lecce, Italy.
Daniele
D
Sanvitto