Bloch Oscillations of Hybrid Light-Matter Particles in a Waveguide Array

Abstract

Bloch oscillations are a phenomenon well known from quantum mechanics where electrons in a lattice experience an oscillatory motion in the presence of an electric field gradient. Here, we report on Bloch oscillations of hybrid light-matter particles, called exciton-polaritons, being confined in an array of coupled microcavity waveguides. To this end, we carefully design the waveguides, widths and their mutual couplings such that a constant energy gradient is induced perpendicular to the direction of motion of the propagating exciton-polaritons. This technique allows us to directly observe and study Bloch oscillations in real- and momentum-space. Furthermore, we support our experimental findings by numerical simulations based on a modified Gross-Pitaevskii approach. Our work provides an important transfer of basic concepts of quantum mechanics to integrated solid state devices, using quantum fluids of light.

8 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (8)

• Quantum phase transition from a superfluid to a Mott insulator in a gas of ultracold atoms
• Quantum fluids of light
• Photonic Analogue of Two-dimensional Topological Insulators and Helical One-Way Edge Transport in Bi-Anisotropic Metamaterials
• Observation of Superfluidity of Polaritons in Semiconductor Microcavities
• Quantised Vortices in an Exciton-Polariton Fluid
• Quantum-fluid dynamics of microcavity polaritons
• Propagation and amplification dynamics of 1D polariton condensates
• Impact of the energetic landscape on polariton condensates propagation along a coupler

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Observation of the Wannier-Stark ladder in plasmonic waveguide arrays
• Chaotic Bloch oscillations in dissipative optical systems driven by a periodic train of coherent pulses