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SERIES ON SEMICONDUCTOR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Series Editors
Alexey V. Kavokin
Chair of Nanophysics and Photonics, Physics and Astronomy,
University of Southampton, UK,
Director of Research at the National Research Council, Italy,
and Principal Investigator at the Russian Quantum Center, Moscow, Russia
Jeremy J. Baumberg
Fellow of the Royal Society, Director of NanoPhotonics Centre, Cavendish
Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK
Guillaume Malpuech
Senior CNRS Researcher and head of the Photon department of the Institut Pascal,
joint Laboratory of Universite Clermont Auvergne and CNRS, France
Fabrice P. Laussy
Principal Lecturer, Director of Studies for Physics,
University of Wolverhampton, UK
3
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© Alexey V. Kavokin, Jeremy J. Baumberg, Guillaume Malpuech, Fabrice P. Laussy 2017
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
First Edition published in 2007
First Edition published in paperback 2011
Second Edition published in 2017
Impression: 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
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address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2017938216
ISBN 978–0–19–878299–5
DOI 10.1093/oso/9780198782995.001
Printed and bound by
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Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
PREFACE TO THE 2ND EDITION
1 Important recent reviews and volumes devoted to the central topics of this book are:
* D. Sanvitto and V. Timofeev (Eds.) Exciton Polaritons in Microcavities, Springer (2012).
* I. Carusotto and C. Ciuti Quantum fluids of light, Review of Modern Physics, 85, 299 (2013).
* A. Bramati and M. Modugno (Eds.) Physics of Quantum Fluids, Springer (2013).
* T. Byrnes, N. Y. Kim and Y. Yamamoto Exciton–polariton condensates, Nature Physics, 10, 803
(2014).
* D. Sanvitto and S. Kéna Cohen The road towards polaritonic devices, Nature Materials, 15, 1061
(2016).
v
vi PREFACE
February 2017,
The authors.
PREFACE TO THE REVISED PAPERBACK EDITION
Since the publication of the first edition of this book in 2007, we have received
many comments from our readers, which were of great help when we worked on this
paperback version. We thank all those who expressed their positive opinion on the book
and encouraged us to improve and update it. We thank also those readers who pointed
out misprints and more serious errors in the previous version. We apologise for these
imperfections! We have tried to correct all the mistakes we could find in this version.
We are happy that we did not make a mistake in one important aspect: microcavities
attract more and more the attention of physicists, material scientists and engineers. This
field is enlarging and new findings are extremely interesting. Between 2006 and 2010,
the microcavity research was developing at a high pace. Preparing this version of the
book, we felt compelled not only to correct the various mistakes found in the previ-
ous version, but also to address the most important (in our opinion) effects discovered
during these 4 years. In particular, we decided to address the recent works on polariton
lasers and diodes, superfluidity of exciton-polaritons, quantised vortices in polariton
condensates and strong-coupling with microcavities containing quantum dots. We have
incorporated new sections or paragraphs devoted to these aspects in Chapters 5, 6, 8
and 9. We realise that it is virtually impossible to keep the book updated as nowadays,
new important papers on the physics of microcavities appear every week.2 Instead, we
see the goal of this book in giving a theoretical background to the complex microcavity
physics and in illustrating the basic theoretical concepts by examples from recent exper-
imental works. All of us keep working in this research field, and we keep collaborating
on several subjects related to microcavities. We invite the readers of this book to visit
with us the wonderland of microcavities. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have
questions, if you noticed mistakes, if you have critical remarks, suggestions, etc.
September 2010,
The authors.
2 Those who wish to know more about the recent developments may find it beneficial to consult:
* H. Deng, H. Haug and Y. Yamamoto, Exciton-polariton Bose–Einstein condensation, Review of
Modern Physics, 82, 1489 (2010).
* D. Snoke and P. Littlewood, Polariton condensates, Physics Today, 63, 42 (2010).
* I. Carusotto and D. Sanvitto, Non-equilibrium Bose–Einstein condensation in a dissipative environ-
ment, in “Quantum Gases: Finite Temperature and Non-Equilibrium Dynamics”, ed. by N. Proukakis,
S. A. Gardiner, M. J. Davis, M. H. Szymanska and N. Nygaard, Imperial College Press, London
(2013).
* I. A. Shelykh, A. V. Kavokin, Y. G. Rubo, T. C. H. Liew and G. Malpuech, Polariton polarisation
sensitive phenomena in planar semiconductor microcavities, Semiconductor Science and Technology,
25, 013001 (2010).
* J. Keeling, F. M. Marchetti, M. H. Szymanska and P. B. Littlewood, Collective coherence in planar
semiconductor microcavities, Semiconductor Science and Technology, 22(5), R1 (2007).
* E. del Valle, Microcavity Quantum Electrodynamics, VDM Verlag, Saarbrücken, Germany (2010).
vii
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
Effects originating from light–matter coupling have stimulated the development of op-
tics for the last three centuries. Nowadays, the limits of classical optics can be reached
in a number of solid-state systems and quantum optics has become an important tool for
understanding and interpreting modern optical experiments. Rapid progress of crystal-
growth technology in the twentieth century allows the realisation of crystal microstruc-
tures that have unusual and extremely interesting optical properties. This book addresses
the large variety of optical phenomena taking place in confined solid-state structures:
microcavities. Microcavities serve as building blocks for many opto-electronic devices,
such as light-emitting diodes and lasers. At the edge of research, the microcavity rep-
resents a unique laboratory for quantum optics and photonics. The central object of
studies in this laboratory is the exciton-polariton: a half-light, half-matter quasiparti-
cle exhibiting very specific properties and playing a key role in a number of beautiful
effects including parametric scattering, Bose–Einstein condensation, superfluidity, su-
perradiance, entanglement, etc. At present, hundreds of research groups throughout the
world work on fabrication, optical spectroscopy, theory and applications of microcav-
ities. The progress in this interdisciplinary field at the interface between optics and
solid-state physics is extremely rapid. We expect the appearance of a new generation of
opto-electronic devices based on microcavities in the 2010s.
Both rich fundamental physics of microcavities and their intriguing potential ap-
plications are addressed in this book, orientated to undergraduate and postgraduate
students as well as to physicists and engineers. We describe the essential steps of de-
velopment of the physics of microcavities in their chronological order. We show how
different types of structures combining optical and electronic confinement have come
into play and were used to realise first weak and later strong light–matter coupling
regimes. We discuss photonic crystals, microspheres, pillars and other types of artifi-
cial optical cavities with embedded semiconductor quantum wells, wires and dots. We
present the most striking experimental findings of the recent two decades in the optics
of semiconductor quantum structures.
The first chapter of this book contains an overview of microcavities. We present the
variety of semiconductor, metallic and dielectric structures used to make microcavities
of different dimensions, and briefly present a few characteristic optical effects observed
in microcavities.
The next two chapters (2 and 3) are devoted to the fundamental principles of optics
essential for understanding optical phenomena in microcavities. We provide overviews
of both classical and quantum theory of light, discuss the coherence of light, its polari-
sation, statistics of photons and other quantum characteristics. The reader will find here
the basic principles of the transfer matrix technique allowing for easy understanding of
viii
PREFACE ix
linear optical properties of multilayer structures as well as the basics of the second quan-
tisation method. We consider planar, cylindrical and spherical optical cavities, introduce
the whispering-gallery modes and Mie resonances.
In Chapters 4 and 5 we give the theoretical background for the most important light–
matter coupling effects in microcavities considered from the point of view of classical
(Chapter 4) and quantum (Chapter 5) optics. We formulate the semiclassical non-local
dielectric response theory and study the dispersion of exciton-polaritons in microcavi-
ties. As an important toy model we consider a single exciton state coupled to a single
light mode and study many variations of it. We describe important nonlinear effects
known in atomic cavities (such as the Mollow triplet).
In Chapter 6 we discuss the physics of weak coupling, when interaction of the light
field with the exciton acts as a perturbation on its state and energy. We discuss the
Purcell effect that symbolises this regime and lasing as its most important application.
We also describe nonlinear effects such as bistability.
Chapter 7 addresses the resonant optical effects in the strong-coupling regime. We
overview the most spectacular experimental discoveries in this area and present the
quasimode model of parametric amplification of light. We also discuss the quantum
properties of optical parametric oscillators based on microcavities.
Chapters 8 and 9 discuss the future of microcavities. Chapter 8 is devoted to the
Bose–Einstein condensation of exciton-polaritons and polariton lasing. At the time of
writing, polariton-lasers remain more a theoretical concept than commercial devices, but
we believe that in a few years they will become a reality. Thus, for the first time, Bose
condensation would be observed at room temperature and used for the creation of a new
generation of opto-electronic devices. The path toward this breathtaking perspective
and the most serious obstacles in the way that are not yet overcome, are tackled in this
chapter.
The subject of Chapter 9 is “spin-optronics”: a new subfield of solid-state optics
that emerged very recently due to the discoveries made in microcavities and other quan-
tum confined semiconductor structures. How to manipulate the polarisation of light
on a nanosecond and micrometre scale? What would be the polarisation properties of
polariton-lasers and which mechanisms govern spin-relaxation of exciton-polaritons?
These questions are treated in this chapter.
The glossary is addressed to a non-specialist who is searching for the qualitative
understanding of the physics of microcavities or to any reader who has no time to go
through the entire book, but needs a simple and concise answer to one of the specific
questions related to microcavities. In the glossary, a number of important relevant issues
are treated without any equations on a simple and accessible level for the general reader.
We pay special attention to explanation of terms frequently used in this field of physics,
for example, “exciton-polariton”, “Rabi splitting”, “strong coupling”, “Bragg mirror”,
“VCSEL”, “photonic crystal”, etc.
The book is intended as a working manual for advanced or graduate students and
new researchers in the field. It is written to a high standard of scientific and mathematical
accuracy, but to allow an agreeable reading through the essential points unhampered by
details, many sophistications or difficulties, as well as side issues or extensions, have
x PREFACE
November 2006,
The authors.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book owes much to our collaboration with active researchers in the field. It is our
pleasure to express our gratitude to Yuri Rubo, Ivan Shelykh, Kirill Kavokin, Daniele
Sanvitto, Pavlos Lagoudakis, Mikhail Glazov, Maurice Skolnick, David Whittaker, Pav-
los Savvidis, David Lidzey, Elena del Valle, Carlos Tejedor, Arne Laucht, Norman
Hauke, Jonathan Finley, Dario Ballarini, Lorenzo Dominici, Dmitry Solnyshkov, Hugo
Flayac, Anton Nalitov, Carlos Sánchez Muñoz, David Colas, Juan-Camilo López Car-
reño and Amir Rahmani.
xi
Alexey Kavokin
To Sofia Kavokina,
Jeremy Baumberg
To Melissa Murray,
Guillaume Malpuech
To Anne Tournadre,
Fabrice Laussy
To my father, Raymond Laussy.
(1953–2006)
CONTENTS
Glossary xxiii
1 Overview of Microcavities 1
1.1 Properties of microcavities 2
1.1.1 Q-factor and finesse 2
1.1.2 Intracavity field enhancement and field distribution 3
1.1.3 Tuneability and mode separation 3
1.1.4 Angular mode pattern 4
1.1.5 Low-threshold lasing 4
1.1.6 Purcell factor and lifetimes 5
1.1.7 Strong vs. weak coupling 5
1.2 Microcavity realisations 6
1.3 Planar microcavities 6
1.3.1 Metal microcavities 8
1.3.2 Dielectric Bragg mirrors 9
1.4 Spherical mirror microcavities 10
1.5 Pillar microcavities 12
1.6 Whispering-gallery modes 15
1.6.1 Two-dimensional whispering galleries 16
1.6.2 Three-dimensional whispering-galleries 18
1.7 Photonic-crystal cavities 19
1.7.1 Random lasers 19
1.8 Material systems 19
1.8.1 GaN microcavities 21
1.8.2 ZnO microcavities 21
1.8.3 Organic microcavities 21
1.8.4 Transition metal chalcogenides 22
1.8.5 Plasmonic nanocavities 22
1.9 Microcavity lasers 23
1.10 Conclusion 24
xv
xvi CONTENTS
2.3 Coherence 34
2.3.1 Statistical properties of light 34
2.3.2 Spatial and temporal coherence 35
2.3.3 Wiener–Khinchin theorem 40
2.3.4 Hanbury Brown–Twiss effect 43
2.4 Polarisation-dependent optical effects 45
2.4.1 Birefringence 45
2.4.2 Magneto-optical effects 46
2.5 Propagation of light in multilayer planar structures 48
2.6 Photonic eigenmodes of planar systems 52
2.6.1 Photonic bands of 1D periodic structures 54
2.7 Planar microcavities 61
2.8 Tamm plasmons and photonic Tamm states 67
2.9 Stripes, pillars and spheres: photonic wires and dots 69
2.9.1 Cylinders and pillar cavities 71
2.9.2 Spheres 74
2.10 Further reading 77
Bibliography 561
Index 583
GLOSSARY
xxiii
xxiv GLOSSARY
A
Bose–Einstein statistics describes the energy distribution of quan-
tum particles with integer spin, called bosons (e.g., pho-
tons). It reduces to the Maxwell–Boltzmann statistics of
an ideal classical gas in the high-temperature and high-
Absorption of light in a crystal is a measurement that can be made energy limit. At low temperatures, it predicts the accumu-
by calorimetres or deduced from the reflectivity and the lation of bosons in the lowest energy state (Bose–Einstein
transmission spectra. It characterises the efficiency of the condensation).
light–matter coupling.
Bosonic cascade is an ensemble of N localised bosonic conden-
Acoustic phonon is a phonon that can be excited by a photon. In-
sates that have different energies but overlap in real space.
teraction of exciton-polaritons with acoustic phonons is
The overlap facilitates transition of bosons between the
one of the most important mechanisms of the polariton
different condensates by emission or absorption of light,
energy relaxation in microcavities.
lattice vibration, etc. When energies are equally-spaced,
for instance by confining the BEC in an harmonic poten-
Active layer In semiconductor lasers, this is the layer of a semi-
tial, this realises a bosonic counterpart of the quantum
conductor material, e.g., a quantum well, where the inver-
cascade laser.
sion of electronic population between the energy levels in
the valence and conduction bands is achieved. The stim-
Bottleneck The (phonon) bottleneck effect is a slowing down of
ulated emission of light dominates its absorption in this
the rapid polariton relaxation along the lower dispersion
layer at some frequency.
branch that is rapid in the exciton-like part due to scat-
Anticrossing is a signature of the strong-coupling regime in a sys- tering with acoustic phonons, but then becomes slower
tem of two coupled oscillators. Due to the interactions in the vicinity of the anticrossing point of the exciton
between the oscillators, the eigenfrequencies of the sys- and photon modes because of kinetic blocking of polari-
tem remain splitted (and this splitting is in fact maximum) ton relaxation. The main obstacle for polariton relaxation
when the normal frequencies of the two individual oscil- in the bottleneck region comes from the lack of acoustic
lators coincide. phonons that are able to scatter with polaritons of very
low effective mass. The bottleneck effect prevents polari-
Antinode (of the light field in a cavity) is the maximum of inten- tons from relaxing down to their ground state at k = 0,
sity of the electric field of a standing light mode. Typ- which represents a major problem for the realisation of
ically an active element (quantum well, wire or dot) is polariton lasers. The bottleneck effect exists also for bulk
sought to be placed at the antinode of the field as this or quantum well exciton-polaritons.
provides the largest exciton–light coupling strength in the
cavity. Bose–Einstein condensation (BEC), also simply “Bose conden-
sation”, is a phase transition for bosons leading to the for-
C
modes in and out of resonance (equal energy). For in-
stance, the detuning between photon and exciton modes
in a microcavity is the difference between the eigenfre-
quencies of the bare cavity mode and the exciton reso-
Coherence is one of the basic characteristics of light. Accord- nance at zero in-plane wavevector. One speaks of positive
ing to the Glauber classification, different orders of the detuning if the cavity mode is above the exciton reso-
coherence can be defined. The first-order coherence is nance and of negative detuning if it is below.
dependent on temporal correlations of the amplitude of
the light field, the second-order coherence is dependent Dispersion in optics and in quantum mechanics describes the fre-
on the intensity correlations, etc. Fully coherent light is quency (energy) dependence on the wavevector. If a wave
fully correlated to all orders. The coherence time and co- equation is dispersive, the profile of a wavepacket usually
herence length of light are linked to the first-order coher- get distorted as it propagates (if combinations of disper-
ence.The term is also wildly applied to other concepts, sion and nonlinearity concur in maintaining its shape, a
such as quantum coherence or condensate coherence. Of- soliton is formed).
E
ten these other meanings themselves split further into more
definitions for unrelated concepts.
D
Mott excitons, the former having much larger binding en-
ergies and much smaller Bohr radius than the latter.
H
of a Hilbert space that describes the state of a quantum
system. See also “Bra”.
J
situated inside the light cone can be directly probed by
light incident from outside. States outside the light cone
are frequently referred to as “wave-guiding states”; they
cannot be directly accessed from outside and prisms or
Jaynes–Cummings model describes the coupling of a single atom dielectric gratings are used to populate them.
with the quantised optical field. It is a rare instance of a
fully-integrable fully-quantum Hamiltonian. Liouville equation also known as Liouville–von Neumann equa-
tion is a linear differential equation that describes the dy-
Jones vector is a two-component complex vector that describes namics of a density matrix. It is the counterpart of the
the polarisation of light. Its components correspond to the Schrödinger equation for a pure state (wavefunction).
amplitudes of two orthogonal linear polarisations.
Locality is a property of a response function: a local response at a
given point in space depends only on the argument of the
function at the same point in space.
GLOSSARY xxvii
Longitudinal–transverse splitting, abbreviated as TE–TM split- Nanowires are one-dimensional metallic or semiconductor objects
ting, is the splitting between optical modes that have their providing the electronic confinement in two dimensions.
polarisation vector parallel and perpendicular to the wave- They are also referred to as quantum wires. The radius of
vector, respectively. It also applies to exciton-polaritons. a nanowire is typically of the order of 1–10 nm.
M O
Magic angle is the incidence angle of light that allows one to ex- Order parameter of a phase transition is a characteristic of the
cite the polariton state close to the inflection point of the system that is zero above the critical temperature of the
lowest polariton branch so that the energy and wavevec- transition and nonzero below. In the case of the Bose–
tor conservation conditions are fulfilled for the polariton– Einstein condensation, the wavefunction of the conden-
polariton scattering from this state into the ground state sate is an order parameter. Within the second quantisation
(k = 0) and some higher-energy state belonging to formalism, the expectation value of the boson creation
the lower-polariton branch (called “idler”). The resonant (annihilation) operator in the condensate plays the same
polariton–polariton scattering plays a central role in micro- role. From the point of view of experimental observa-
cavity-based optical parametric amplifiers and oscillators. tion of the superfluid phase transition in the system of
Excitation at the magic angle allows one to populate qua- spin-degenerate exciton-polaritons, the spontaneous lin-
sidirectly the polariton ground state, thus transferring the ear polarisation of the polariton condensate provides an
coherence of the exciting laser pulse to light emitted by order parameter.
the cavity normally to its surface. In typical GaAs-based
cavities the magic angle varies between 15 and 20 degrees Optical parametric amplifier (OPA) is a process of resonant scat-
at detunings close to zero. tering of two particles (like photons or polaritons) of fre-
quency ω0 into two particles of frequency ω0 + ω1
Markov approximation consists in the assumption that the time and ω0 − ω1 that are called idler and signal, respec-
evolution of the quantum state of a system at time t de- tively. In terms of classical optics this is a nonlinear pro-
pends on its state and on the external conditions at the cess governed by a χ3 susceptibility. If a nonlinear me-
same time t only and as such, does not have any memory dia generating the parametric amplification is placed in
of its previous dynamics. a resonator, the corresponding device can be referred to
Master equation is an equation of motion for a density matrix. It as an optical parametric oscillator (OPO). In microcavi-
therefore describes the dynamics of the probabilities of ties such a parametric amplification process is extremely
the occupation numbers of a quantum system. efficient if one pumps at the magic angle. In this case,
the scattering of two pumped polaritons into a ground
Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution describes the probability to find state (signal) and an excited state (idler) is resonant (con-
a particle with a given velocity in an ideal classical gas. serves both energy and wavevector). The driving force of
the scattering is the Coulomb interaction between polari-
Metallic reflection is the reflection of light by materials that have tons. The parametric amplification can be stimulated by
a nonzero imaginary part in their refractive index. a probe pulse that seeds the ground-state, injecting a po-
lariton population larger than one. The process can also
Microsphere, microdisk are semiconductor or dielectric spheres be strong enough to be self-stimulated.
(disks) with a radius comparable to the wavelength of
visible light in the media. Optical phonon is a crystal-lattice vibration mode characterised
by the relative motion of cations and anions.
Microwires are semiconductor or metallic cylinders that have a
diameter in the range of 0.1–10 mm. They can be con- Optical spin Hall effect is the angle-dependent conversion of lin-
sidered as microcavities, since they usually confine well ear to circular polarised light in microcavities. It is based
the visible light due to the contrast of dielectric constants on the resonant Rayleigh scattering of exciton-polaritons
in the wire material and in the surrounding air. The quality and is governed by their longitudinal-transverse splitting.
factor of whispering gallery modes of light in microwires
may be as high as 50 000, while the finesse of these modes Organic materials are made of organic molecules, containing car-
is much lower. There have been reports on polariton las- bon, oxygen and hydrogen atoms, usually.
ing in ZnO microwires.
Oscillator strength characterises the strength of the coupling be-
Motional narrowing is a quantum effect that consists in the nar- tween light and an oscillating dipole (e.g., an exciton).
rowing of a distribution function of a quantum particle
propagating in a disordered medium due to averaging of
the disorder potential on the size of the wavefunction of a
particle. In other words, quantum particles that are never
localised at a given point of the space, but always occupy
P
some nonzero volume, have a potential energy that is the Pauli principle forbids two fermions to occupy the same quantum
average of the potential within this volume. This is why, state.
in a random fluctuation potential, the energy distribution
Phase diagram shows the functional dependence between the crit-
function of a quantum particle is always narrower than
ical parameters (temperature, density, magnetic field, etc.)
the potential distribution function.
separating different phases of a system at thermal equilib-
N
rium.
Q
Photoluminescence is a powerful method of optical spectroscopy
that studies the light emission from a sample illuminated
by light of a higher frequency than that that is emitted.
Photonic crystal is a periodic dielectric structure characterised by Quantum computation refers to the application of quantum in-
photonic bands (including allowed bands and gaps). Cav- formation to process qubits to undergo useful computa-
ities in photonic crystals allow study of fully localised tional procedures (or algorithms) that have been found
discrete photonic states. in some cases to outclass their classical equivalents. For
instance, the Shor algorithm factorises large integers in
Pillar microcavity is a pillar etched from a planar microcavity struc- polynomial time and the Grover algorithm speeds up quer-
ture. Its diameter is comparable to the wavelength of light ries in unstructured spaces. The possibility to use micro-
at the frequency of the planar cavity mode. It allows one cavities to do quantum computation is in a prehistoric
to obtain full (three-dimensional) photonic confinement. research stage.
quantum cryptography Application of quantum information to
Plasmon is a quantised light mode of propagation on a metal or communicate a message securely, taking advantage, e.g.,
a highly doped semiconductor. Plasmons can be longi- of conjugate bases for measurement of a qubit or of EPR
tudinal or transverse, localised at the surface or freely correlations. The possibility to use microcavities to do
propagating in the bulk crystal. In metallic microspheres quantum computation is, like quantum computation, in a
or other microstructures confined plasmon-polaritons can prehistoric research stage.
be formed. quantum dot (QD) is a semiconductor nanocrystal that confines
excitation in all three dimensions. It is the ultimate ex-
Poincaré sphere is a sphere each point of which surface corre-
tension of the concept of the reduced dimensionality of a
sponds to a given polarisation of light. Points of the vol-
quantum well.
ume within the sphere describe partially polarised state.
The Poincaré sphere can also be used to describe the quan- quantum information The formulation of (classical) information
tum state of a two-level system, in which case it is known theory with quantum systems as the carriers of informa-
as the Bloch sphere. tions, which proved to be a worthwile extension, yield-
ing as subbranches quantum cryptography and quantum
Polariton is a mixed quasiparticle formed by a photon and a crys- computation.
tal excitation (phonon, magnon, plasmon or exciton). Po- quantum state A vector in a Hilbert space that fully describes a
laritons can be formed in bulk crystals, at their surfaces, quantum-mechanical system according to the postulates
in quantum-confined structures and microcavities. In this of quantum mechanics.
book we mostly consider the exciton-polaritons (see its quantum well (QW) is a semiconductor heterostructure having a
entry in the glossary). profile of conduction and/or valence band edges in the
form of a potential well where the free carriers or excitons
Polariton diode is a light-emitting device based on a microcav- can be trapped in one-dimensional sheets and propagate
ity in the strong-coupling regime. Light is produced by freely in the others two (the so-called plane of the quan-
spontaneous recombination of exciton-polaritons, which tum well.)Multiple quantum wells are a system of parallel
are pumped to the system either optically or electroni- quantum wells separated by barriers. If the barriers are
cally. In the latter case, the electrons and holes are in- thin enough to allow for efficient tunnelling between the
jected in the microcavity through the contacts, they form wells, a system of multiple quantum wells is then called
excitons, exciton-polaritons and finally recombine emit- a superlattice.
ting photons. Contrary to polariton lasers, in polariton
quantum wire is an electrically conducting wire whose dimen-
diodes, light is emitted by many quantum states, and an
sions are so small as to impose quantum confinement in
average population of each of these states is less than one.
the directions normal to the axis. It extends the concept
Polariton laser is a coherent light source based on Bose–Einstein of the reduced dimensionality of a quantum well one step
condensation of exciton-polaritons. Contrary to VCSELs, further.
polariton lasers have no threshold linked to the population
Quasi-Bose–Einstein condensation is a term frequently used to
inversion. Amplification of light is here governed by the
describe the accumulation of a macroscopic quantity of
ratio between the lifetime of exciton-polaritons and their
bosons in the same quantum state in a finite-size quan-
relaxation time towards the condensate.
tum system, in obvious analogy to Bose–Einstein con-
Polariton neuron is a bistable polaritonic system confined in a densation that strictly speaking is a phase transition for
channel. Information propagates in polariton neurons due infinite-size systems.
to the motion of domain walls tha separate “switched on”
Qubit A quantum two-level system. The term appears in connec-
and “switched off” regions, in analogy with a biological
tion with quantum information where it is the elementary
neuron.
unit of information carried by a quantum system, and is
Polarisation of light is an important characteristic of a light mode the support for related effects, like dense coding. In mi-
that describes the geometrical orientation and dynamics crocavities, any two-level system such as the pseudospin
of the electric field vector. of a polariton in principle qualifies as a qubit, provided
that the coherence time and control of the state are good
Pseudospin is a complex vector describing the quantum state of enough, which are still open questions. The term qubit
a two-level quantum system in the same manner than the has been introduced by Schumacher (1995).
R
Jones vector describes the polarisation of light.
— Niin, sanoi Götrik Fincke, tässä ei ole muu neuvona kuin lähteä
Olavinlinnaan valvomaan, ett’ei Savon rahvas yhdisty
kapinoitsijoihin. Joutukaa nyt että saamme vähä ruokaa ja juomaa,
sillä meillä on pitkä matka tehtävänä. Toimita hevonen re'en eteen ja
satulat hevosten selkään, sanoi hän, puhutellen talonvoutia, ja pidä
sitten huolta talosta. Keräile kokoon ja kätke varmaan paikkaan mitä
voi.
Tuskin oli tämä tehty, kun talonvouti tuli sisään ilmoittaen, että
hevoset olivat valmiina; eikä aikaakaan, niin oltiin jo matkalla.
Lunta alkoi sataa, ja pakkanen oli jotoskin kova. Mutta Ebba istui
huolellisesti käärittynä vällyihin, ja ratsastajilla oli suuret,
karvanahoilla sisustetut viitat. Ajettiin hyvää ravia eespäin autiota
seutua. Heidän päästyään pari penikulmaa kodista, kävi tie ylängön
rinnettä ylöspäin, josta selvällä ilmalla näki hyvin kauvas seutujen yli.
Harjun harjalla seisahti Götrik Fincke, joka ratsasti pienen
retkikunnan etunenässä.
Kun ne, joiden tuli ottaa Ilkka ja muut päälliköt kiinni unesta, eivät
löytäneet heitä, ja kun selvisi että he olivat paenneet, joten siis ei
voitaisi antaumis-ehtoja täyttää, valtasi sanomaton kauhistus
kapinajoukon. Ei sitä ollut, joka olisi pystynyt kannattamaan
kuuliaisuutta. Kavalluksen kautta olivat viimeisetkin järjestyksen
siteet katkenneet, ja nyt hajaantui kaikki hurjaan sekamelskaan.
Mustana kuohulaineena, joka sulkunsa särkee, samosi nuijajoukko
lujasta asemastaan Nokian kosken luona pohjoseen päin. Pimeys
esti lähtemästä erästä osastoa, joka piti leiriään ahtaassa notkossa
korkeiden metsämäkien välissä, ja niinpä sytytettiin soihtuksi
läheinen heinälato palamaan.
Eräänä iltana ilmoitti vahti että toisella puolen virtaa sytytettiin joku
merkkituli. Muutama minuti myöhemmin ilmoitettiin taasen että Olavi
Sverkerinpoika oli tullut, tuoden sanomia Flemingiltä.