Spontaneous and superfluid chiral edge states in exciton-polariton condensates

• Main Authors: Sigurdsson, H., Li, G., Liew, Timothy Chi Hin
• Other Authors: School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: Exciton Polariton; Spinor Bose-Einstein Condensates
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/85823; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/45371
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

We present a scheme of interaction-induced topological band structures based on the spin anisotropy of exciton-polaritons in semiconductor microcavities. We predict theoretically that this scheme allows the engineering of topological gaps, without requiring a magnetic field or strong spin-orbit interaction (transverse electric-transverse magnetic splitting). Under nonresonant pumping we find that an initially topologically trivial system undergoes a topological transition upon the spontaneous breaking of phase symmetry associated with polariton condensation. Under either nonresonant or resonant coherent pumping we find that it is also possible to engineer a topological dispersion that is linear in wave vector—a property associated with polariton superfluidity.