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Formation of matter-wave polaritons in an optical lattice

Nature Physics volume 18, pages 657–661 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

The polariton—a quasiparticle formed by the strong coupling of a photon to a matter excitation—is a fundamental ingredient of emergent photonic quantum systems ranging from semiconductor nanophotonics to circuit quantum electrodynamics. Exploiting the interaction between polaritons has led to the realization of superfluids of light as well as of strongly correlated phases in the microwave domain, with similar efforts underway for microcavity excitons–polaritons. Here we develop an ultracold-atom analogue of an exciton–polariton system in which interacting polaritonic phases can be studied with full tunability and in the absence of dissipation. In our optical lattice system, the exciton is replaced by an atomic excitation, whereas an atomic matter wave is substituted for the photon under a strong dynamical coupling between the two constituents that hybridizes the two dispersion relations. We spectroscopically access the band structure of the matter-wave polariton by coupling the upper and lower polariton branches, as well as explore polaritonic transport in the superfluid and Mott-insulating regimes, finding quantitative agreement with our theoretical expectations. Our work sheds light on fundamental polariton properties and related many-body phenomena, and opens up novel possibilities for studies of polaritonic quantum matter.

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Fig. 1: Experimental schematic and polariton formation.
Fig. 2: Excitation spectra in the Mott regime (s⊥ = 40, s = 14).
Fig. 3: Polariton band structure, calculated for s = 10.
Fig. 4: Renormalization of hopping extracted from the coherence of the |r〉 component at s⊥ = 18.

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. Stewart, M. G. Cohen, Y. Li and T.-C. Wei for discussions, and M.G.Cohen for a critical reading of the manuscript. This work was supported by NSF PHY-1912546, with additional funds from SUNY Center for Quantum Information Science on Long Island.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA

    Joonhyuk Kwon, Youngshin Kim, Alfonso Lanuza & Dominik Schneble

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  3. Alfonso Lanuza
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Contributions

D.S., J.K. and Y.K. designed the experiments. J.K. and Y.K. took the measurements. Data analysis was performed by J.K., Y.K. and A.L. Theoretical modelling was done by A.L. The results were discussed and interpreted by all the authors. Figures were created by J.K. and A.L. D.S. supervised the project. The manuscript was written by J.K. and D.S. with contributions from A.L. and Y.K.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dominik Schneble.

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Nature Physics thanks Marzena Szymanska and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Reversibility of polariton formation.

Fraction of \(\left|b\right\rangle\) atoms (blue) and peak width of \(\left|r\right\rangle\) atoms (orange) after a symmetric microwave ramp up and down (each over 2.5 ms) for the parameters of Fig. 4 at s = 10. The dotted open blue circle is the blue atom fraction for the sequence of Fig. 2c without lattice modulation applied. We suspect that the degradation comes from magnetic-field noise that is able to drive LP -> UP transitions by directly affecting Δ.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1

Source data for Fig. 1.

Source Data Fig. 2

Source data for Fig. 2.

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Kwon, J., Kim, Y., Lanuza, A. et al. Formation of matter-wave polaritons in an optical lattice. Nat. Phys. 18, 657–661 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-022-01565-4

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