Relaxation Oscillations in the Formation of a Polariton Condensate

Abstract

We report observation of oscillations in the dynamics of a microcavity polariton condensate formed under pulsed nonresonant excitation. While oscillations in a condensate have always been attributed to Josephson mechanisms due to a chemical potential unbalance, here we show that under some localization conditions of the condensate, they may arise from relaxation oscillations, a pervasive classical dynamics that repeatedly provokes the sudden decay of a reservoir, shutting off relaxation as the reservoir is replenished. Using nonresonant excitation, it is thus possible to obtain condensate injection pulses with a record frequency of 0.1 THz.