Polaritons are versatile quasiparticles that could be at the core of new technologies, since polariton devices have been proposed, such as polariton lasers, optical gates, transistors, spin-based elements and integrated circuits. Yet, their propagation depends strongly on the geometry of the pathway laid for them.
In a recent paper, Luis Viña, Dolores Martín, et al. in a huge collaborative research (Madrid, Jena, Würzburg, Saint-Petersburg, Reykjavik and Saint Andrews) have analyzed the “Impact of the energetic landscape on polariton condensates’ propagation along a coupler”, published in Advanced Optical Materials.
The amount of technical challenges involved in this research is hard to grasp: from the manufacture of the guides to the experimental measurements, that require literally “taking pictures of light”.
We did this picture that was featured in the cover of Advanced Optical Materials, under close supervision of Dolores Martín and Luis Viña.