Polariton lattices

27 Nov, 2018

Introduction

One of the most interesting concepts in condensed matter is the so-called “frustration”, where a few spins in the system cannot find an orientation to fully satisfy all the interactions with its neighbouring spins. Frustration is a complex and not well-understood phenomenon with interdisciplinary applications to artificial neural networks as well as material science. The classic example is 3 spins a triangular geometry with antiferromagnetic coupling between the nearest neighbours. We have recently introduced exciton-polariton (polariton) condensates as a new platform to study such spin interactions [1-3]. Polariton condensates are macroscopic quantum states with picosecond dynamics and unique spin properties arising from their nonlinearities.

Aims

We experimentally study the spin properties of coupled polariton condensates in 2-dimensional optical lattices in various geometries, specifically the phenomenon of frustration. This project involves a fair amount of programming, and numerical simulations in a collaboration with our theorist collaborators.