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Spectroscopy Techniques for Polariton Research

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Polariton Physics

Part of the book series: Springer Series in Optical Sciences ((SSOS,volume 229))

Abstract

The emission from the exciton–polariton state that is formed in a strongly-coupled QW-microcavity system is correlated to the composite quasi-particles’ state. Thus, a direct experimental access to the properties of polariton gases in solids is provided by means of optical spectroscopy. In fact, the light originating from the decay process of the polaritons inside a cavity is emitted under that angle relative to the cavity axis that corresponds to the in-plane momentum component of the cavity mode coupled to the QW exciton mode due to momentum conservation. This renders angle-resolved spectroscopy an indispensable tool for gathering information about the polaritonic system, which is strongly represented by its energy–momentum dispersion and the anti-crossing behaviour of the coupled optical resonances. Therefore, one can conveniently extract characteristics of the system by means of spectroscopy, which give insight into occupation numbers, effective masses and statistical distributions of particles in the system. In addition, time-resolved spectroscopy increases the ability to characterize polariton gases drastically, as the available and established methods shed light on those systems’ dynamics on the most-relevant time scales. Many of the essential techniques will be briefly summarized here and the relevant terminology introduced.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The repetition rate of the streak camera’s deflector unit is adjusted to the laser frequency of the mode-locked laser source, commonly a Titanium-Sapphire oscillator, which typically delivers fs to ps pulses at a rate of 80 MHz for time-resolved photoluminescence experiments.

  2. 2.

    Due to the typically opaque substrates, many white-light spectroscopy measurements on polariton systems are performed in reflection.

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  1. Physics Department, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Marburg, Germany

    Arash Rahimi-Iman

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Correspondence to Arash Rahimi-Iman .

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Rahimi-Iman, A. (2020). Spectroscopy Techniques for Polariton Research. In: Polariton Physics. Springer Series in Optical Sciences, vol 229. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39333-5_7

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