BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Semiconductor Microcavities Galore - Pavlos Lagoudakis (University
  of Southampton)
DTSTART:20100517T143000Z
DTEND:20100517T160000Z
UID:TALK22405@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:6270
DESCRIPTION:The possibility of high temperature Bose Einstein condensation
  (BEC) in the solid state offers an attractive alternative to ultracold at
 omic BEC. Polaritons in semiconductor microcavities\, the admixture of an 
 exciton and a cavity photon in the strong coupling regime\, are currently 
 on the frontline of research in this field.   Due to their photon componen
 t\, the de Broglie wavelength of polaritons is several orders of magnitude
  larger than that of atoms\, allowing in principle for BEC even at room te
 mperature. However\, unlike atoms\, the polariton lifetime is limited by t
 he photon cavity lifetime to a few picoseconds. Although the ultrashort li
 fetime prevents thermalisation with the host lattice\, inter-particle inte
 ractions allow for rapid relaxation and formation of a macroscopically occ
 upied ground state\, usually referred to as polariton condensate. \nIn thi
 s seminar\, we will discuss different configurations of polariton condensa
 tion both in 2D and pillar microcavities. The transient formation of polar
 iton condensation in a 2D GaAs/AlAs semiconductor microcavity under non-re
 sonant pulsed optical excitation and the transition from the weak- to the 
 strong-coupling regime at high excitation densities in the time domain wil
 l be analysed. In pillar microcavities the observation of non-ground state
  polariton condensation and the kinetics that produce such state will be d
 iscussed. Finally we will discuss the Optical Spin Hall Effect another int
 eresting property of microcavity-polaritons that was shown to allow the se
 paration of spin polarized carriers in real and momentum space. Although t
 he effect was previously attributed to the mixed photonic and excitonic po
 lariton character\, we have been able to observe this effect in a bare pho
 tonic cavity. \nFig 1: Near-(a) and far-field(b) separation of photons bas
 ed on their spin in an all-optical microcavity.  \n
LOCATION:Rutherford building\, Seminar Room B
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR