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Spontaneous spin bifurcations and ferromagnetic phase transitions in a spinor exciton-polariton condensate


Type

Article

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Authors

Dreismann, A 
Rubo, YG 
Pinsker, F 
del Valle-Inclan Redondo, Y 

Abstract

We observe a spontaneous parity breaking bifurcation to a ferromagnetic state in a spatially trapped exciton-polariton condensate. At a critical bifurcation density under nonresonant excitation, the whole condensate spontaneously magnetizes and randomly adopts one of two elliptically polarized (up to 95% circularly-polarized) states with opposite handedness of polarization. The magnetized condensate remains stable for many seconds at 5 K, but at higher temperatures it can flip from one magnetic orientation to another. We optically address these states and demonstrate the inversion of the magnetic state by resonantly injecting 100-fold weaker pulses of opposite spin. Theoretically, these phenomena can be well described as spontaneous symmetry breaking of the spin degree of freedom induced by different loss rates of the linear polarizations.

Description

Keywords

cond-mat.mes-hall, cond-mat.mes-hall, cond-mat.other

Journal Title

Physical Review X

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2160-3308
2160-3308

Volume Title

5

Publisher

American Physical Society (APS)
Sponsorship
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/G060649/1)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/L027151/1)
European Research Council (320503)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/K028510/1)
European Commission (289968)
European Commission (235114)
This work was supported by Grants EPSRC No. EP/G060649/1, EU No. CLERMONT4 235114, EU No. INDEX 289968, Spanish MEC (MAT2008-01555), Greek GSRT ARISTEIA Apollo program and Fundación La Caixa, and Mexican CONACYT No. 251808. FP acknowledges financial support through an EPSRC doctoral prize fellowship at the University of Cambridge and a Schrödinger fellowship at the University of Oxford.