Annular Trap Research Articles

Qubit analog with polariton superfluid in an annular trap.

We report on the experimental realization and characterization of a qubit analog with semiconductor exciton-polaritons. In our system, a polaritonic condensate is confined by a spatially patterned pump laser in an annular trap that supports energy-degenerate vortex states of the polariton superfluid. Using temporal interference measurements, we observe coherent oscillations between a pair of counter-circulating vortex states coupled by elastic scattering of polaritons off the laser-imprinted potential. The qubit basis states correspond to the symmetric and antisymmetric superpositions of the two vortex states. By engineering the potential, we tune the coupling and coherent oscillations between the two circulating current states, control the energies of the qubit basis states, and initialize the qubit in the desired state. The dynamics of the system is accurately reproduced by our theoretical two-state model, and we discuss potential avenues to implement quantum gates and algorithms with polaritonic qubits analogous to quantum computation with standard qubits.

Observation of Moon-like Synchronous Revolution and Rotation of Janus Microparticles Trapped in an Annular Optical Trap

Observation of Moon-like Synchronous Revolution and Rotation of Janus Microparticles Trapped in an Annular Optical Trap

Annular optical trapping of metallic nanoparticles using the azimuthally polarized beam.

The unique physical and chemical properties make metallic nanoparticles promising for broad applications in many fields. Exploring the dynamics of metallic nanoparticles in optical traps is crucial for exploiting optical tweezers to advance the applications of metallic particles. In this paper, we present a detailed study of the annular optical trapping of gold nanoparticles with azimuthal polarization. Theoretical analysis based on the T-matrix method shows that the gold nanoparticles experience optical forces pointing to the equilibrium position along the radial direction, while there is no force along the azimuthal direction at this equilibrium position. Therefore, a tightly focused azimuthally polarized beam captures gold nanoparticles in an annular region. Experimental measurements of the motion trajectory of the confined gold nanoparticles reveal a donut profile consistent with the theoretical predictions. Our work reported in this paper is expected to deepen our understanding of the interactions between metallic nanoparticles and light and promote the application of metallic nanoparticles.

Selective Excitation of Exciton-Polariton Condensate Modes in an Annular Perovskite Microcavity.

Exciton-polariton systems composed of a light-matter quasi-particle with a light effective mass easily realize Bose-Einstein condensation. In this work, we constructed an annular trap in a halide perovskite semiconductor microcavity and observed the spontaneous formation of symmetrical petal-shaped exciton-polariton condensation in the annular trap at room temperature. In our study, we found that the number of petals of the petal-shaped exciton-polariton condensates, which is decided by the orbital angular momentum, is dependent on the light intensity distribution. Therefore, the selective excitation of perovskite microcavity exciton-polariton condensates under all-optical control can be realized by adjusting the light intensity distribution. This could pave the way to room-temperature topological devices, optical cryptographical devices, and new quantum gyroscopes in the exciton-polariton system.

Ground states of a distinct spin–orbit-coupled spin-1 Bose–Einstein Condensate in a toroidal trap

This study delves into the influence of a new type of spin–orbit coupling (SOC) on spin-1 Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) in quasi-two-dimensional annular regions. The unconventional characteristics of the annular potential trap coupled with innovative artificial gauge field bring about a diverse array of phase diagrams for the ground state behavior of the BECs. In the antiferromagnetic state, we observe a distinct petal-like phase structure with components exhibiting novel density and phase distributions. In the ferromagnetic state, the spin-1 BECs exhibit rich asymmetric states which showcase a new type of vortex-molecule structure with multiple winding numbers in the huge hole. Many other novel breaking structures have also been discovered by modulating the strength of the nonlinear interaction. We contribute the different ground states of distinct spin–orbit couplings to the different symmetries.

Steady state oscillations of circular currents in concentric polariton condensates

Concentric ring exciton polariton condensates emerging under non-resonant laser pump in an annular trapping potential support persistent circular currents of polaritons. The trapping potential is formed by a cylindrical micropillar etched in a semiconductor microcavity with embedded quantum wells and a repulsive cloud of optically excited excitons under the pump spot. The symmetry of the potential is subject to external control via manipulation by its pump-induced component. In the manuscript, we demonstrate excitation of concentric ring polariton current states with predetermined vorticity which we trace using interferometry measurements with a spherical reference wave. We also observe the polariton condensate dynamically changing its vorticity during observation, which results in pairs of fork-like dislocations on the time-averaged interferogram coexisting with azimuthally homogeneous photoluminescence distribution in the micropillar.

Nonequilibrium polariton condensation in biannular optically induced traps

We report the mean-field model of nonequilibrium polariton condensation in annular effective non-Hermitian potential traps stemming from incoherent optically induced excitonic reservoirs of annular shape. We solve the linearized extended Gross-Pitaevskii equation in the approximation of two delta-function effective shell potentials for complex spectra of trapped polariton modes and calculate corresponding condensation threshold optical pumping powers. The exhaustive map of condensate quantum number transitions in the multi-dimensional space of trap parameters, including a cascade of topological charge increments, is drastically different from the single annular trap case in topology and the range of accessible condensate states.

Ring-shaped optical trap based on an acousto-optic tunable spatial filter.

We report on a novel, to the best of our knowledge, optical scheme of an annular optical trap based on an acousto-optic tunable spatial filter. Design of the optical trap is proposed and validated. Experimental demonstration with polystyrene microspheres includes controllable arrangement of freely floating particles into a circular pattern, aggregation, and disaggregation of the particles. Dynamical adjustment of the trapping field potential diameter is achieved by programmable frequency-swept controlling of the acousto-optic filter.

A versatile ring trap for quantum gases

We report on the confinement of a Bose–Einstein condensate in an annular trap with widely tunable parameters. The trap relies on a combination of magnetic, optical and radio-frequency fields. The loading procedure is discussed. We present annular traps with radii adjusted between 20 and 150 μm. We demonstrate the preparation of persistent flows both with a rotating laser stirrer and with a global quadrupole deformation of the ring. Our setup is well adapted for the study of superfluid dynamics.

Spin-2 Bose–Einstein condensates in an annular trap with spin–orbit coupling

We study the ground-state phases of spin–orbit coupled spin-2 Bose–Einstein condensates in a two-dimensional concentrically coupled annular trap with the attractive and repulsive spin-exchange interactions, respectively. For the system with the attractive spin-exchange interaction, the ground-state phase densities in the inner ring show the bright solitons along the azimuthal direction with the weak spin–orbit coupling strength and the vortex line along the radial direction with the strong spin–orbit coupling strength. For the system with the repulsive spin-exchange interaction, the necklace-like state is shown. The number of petals of the necklace-like state continuous growth as the spin–orbit coupling strength enhanced. The momentum distributions of the ground-state phases are also studied.

Formation dynamics of exciton-polariton vortices created by nonresonant annular pumping

We study the spontaneous formation of exciton polariton vortices in an all-optical non-resonantly excited annular trap, which is formed by ring-shaped subpicosecond laser pulses. Since the light emitted by these vortices carries orbital angular momentum (OAM) corresponding to their topological charge, we apply a dedicated OAM spectroscopy technique to detect the OAM of the measurement signal with picosecond time resolution. This allows us to identify the formation of OAM modes and investigate the dynamics of the vortex formation process. We also study the power dependence of this process and how the ring diameter influences the formation of OAM modes.

Stable switching among high-order modes in polariton condensates

We report multistate optical switching among high-order bouncing-ball modes ("ripples") and whispering-gallerying modes ("petals") of exciton-polariton condensates in a laser-generated annular trap. By tailoring the diameter and power of the annular trap, the polariton condensate can be switched among different trapped modes, accompanied by redistribution of spatial densities and superlinear increase in the emission intensities, implying that polariton condensates in this geometry could be exploited for a multistate switch. A model based on non-Hermitian modes of the generalized Gross-Pitaevskii equation reveals that this mode switching arises from competition between pump-induced gain and in-plane polariton loss. The parameters for reproducible switching among trapped modes have been measured experimentally, giving us a phase diagram for mode switching. Taken together, the experimental result and theoretical modeling advances our fundamental understanding of the spontaneous emergence of coherence and move us toward its practical exploitation.

Direct measurement of polariton–polariton interaction strength

Exciton-polaritons in a microcavity are composite two-dimensional bosonic quasiparticles, arising from the strong coupling between confined light modes in a resonant planar optical cavity and excitonic transitions, typically using excitons in semiconductor quantum wells (QWs) placed at the antinodes of the same cavity. Quantum phenomena such as Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC), quantized vortices, and macroscopic quantum states have been reported at temperatures from tens of Kelvin up to room temperatures, and polaritonic devices such as spin switches \cite{Amo2010} and optical transistors have also been reported. Many of these effects of exciton-polaritons depend crucially on the polariton-polariton interaction strength. Despite the importance of this parameter, it has been difficult to make an accurate experimental measurement, mostly because of the difficulty of determining the absolute densities of polaritons and bare excitons. Here we report the direct measurement of the polariton-polariton interaction strength in a very high-Q microcavity structure. By allowing polaritons to propagate over 40 $\mu$m to the center of a laser-generated annular trap, we are able to separate the polariton-polariton interactions from polariton-exciton interactions. The interaction strength is deduced from the energy renormalization of the polariton dispersion as the polariton density is increased, using the polariton condensation as a benchmark for the density. We find that the interaction strength is about two orders of magnitude larger than previous theoretical estimates, putting polaritons squarely into the strongly-interacting regime. When there is a condensate, we see a sharp transition to a different dependence of the renormalization on the density, which is evidence of many-body effects.

Quantum-Mechanical generalization of the Thomas–Fermi model

The interaction between particles in the mean-field approximation of the many-body theory is often taken into account with the use of the semiclassical description of the particle motion. However, quantization of a part of the degrees of freedom becomes essential in certain cases. In this work, two such cases where nonlinear wave equations appear have been considered: electrons in a quantum well and excitons in a trap. In the case of indirect excitons in an annular trap, the one-dimensional Gross–Pitaevskii equation permits an analytical solution and it turns out that there can be no bound state in a one-dimensional symmetric potential well. This makes the problem qualitatively different from a similar one-body problem. In the case of electrons in a quantum well, the nonlinear integro-differential equation does not have an exact solution and the allowed energy levels have been found by the direct variational method.

Optical force enhancement and annular trapping by plasmonic toroidal resonance in a double-disk metastructure.

Optical forces can be enhanced by surface plasmon resonances with various interesting characteristics. Here, we numerically calculated the optical forces enhanced by a new kind of toroidal dipolar resonance in a double-disk metastructure. The results show that this kind of optical force is competitive with ordinary plasmonic forces and typically can reach-182.5pNμm2mW-1. Influences of geometric parameters are discussed for the enhancement characteristic of optical force. Finally, we make a contrastive investigation on the optical trapping characteristic on a 5-nm-diameter nanoparticle, and show that the unique annular trapping region can be utilized for nanoscale applications.

The ground states and pseudospin textures of rotating two-component Bose–Einstein condensates trapped in harmonic plus quartic potential**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 91430109 and 11404198), the Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (Grant No. 20111401110004), and the Natural Science Foundation of Shanxi Province, China (Grant No. 2014011005-3).

The ground states of two-component miscible Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) confined in a rotating annular trap are obtained by using the Thomas–Fermi (TF) approximation method. The ground state density distribution of the condensates experiences a transition from a disc shape to an annulus shape either when the angular frequency increases and the width and the center height of the trap are fixed, or when the width and the center height of the trap increase and the angular frequency is fixed. Meantime the numerical solutions of the ground states of the trapped two-component miscible BECs with the same condition are obtained by using imaginary-time propagation method. They are in good agreement with the solutions obtained by the TF approximation method. The ground states of the trapped two-component immiscible BECs are also given by using the imaginary-time propagation method. Furthermore, by introducing a normalized complex-valued spinor, three kinds of pseudospin textures of the BECs, i.e., giant skyrmion, coaxial double-annulus skyrmion, and coaxial three-annulus skyrmion, are found.

Coherence of Bose-Einstein condensates of dipolar excitons in GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures

Experiments relating to studies of the coherence of Bose condensates of dipolar excitons in GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures with a wide, single quantum well and a Schottky gate are analyzed. Dipolar excitons were excited by light in an annular trap formed along the perimeter of a window in a metal gate with an applied electric voltage. A dual-beam interference technique involving interference combination of the amplitudes of the luminescence light field, together with subsequent analysis of first order correlators, is used to study the temporal (longitudinal) and spatial (transverse) coherence of the exciton condensates. It is found that the transverse coherence length of an exciton condensate is considerably longer than its thermal De Broglie wavelength. Experimental studies of the luminescence intensity correlator also confirm the coherence of the exciton Bose condensate.

Spin–orbit-coupled Bose–Einstein-condensed atoms confined in annular potentials

A spin–orbit-coupled Bose–Einstein-condensed cloud of atoms confined in an annular trapping potential shows a variety of phases that we investigate in the present study. Starting with the non-interacting problem, the homogeneous phase that is present in an untrapped system is replaced by a sinusoidal density variation in the limit of a very narrow annulus. In the case of an untrapped system there is another phase with a striped-like density distribution, and its counterpart is also found in the limit of a very narrow annulus. As the width of the annulus increases, this picture persists qualitatively. Depending on the relative strength between the inter- and the intra-components, interactions either favor the striped phase, or suppress it, in which case either a homogeneous, or a sinusoidal-like phase appears. Interactions also give rise to novel solutions with a nonzero circulation.

Stability of persistent currents in open dissipative quantum fluids

The phenomenon of stable persistent currents is central to the studies of superfluidity in a range of physical systems. While most of the previous theoretical studies of superfluid flows in annular geometries concentrated on conservative systems, here we extend the dynamical stability analysis of persistent currents to open dissipative exciton-polariton superfluids. By considering an exciton-polariton condensate in an optically induced annular trap, we determine dynamical stability conditions for an initially imposed flow with a nonzero orbital angular momentum. We show, theoretically and numerically, that the system can sustain metastable persistent currents in a large parameter region, and describe scenarios of the supercurrent decay due to the dynamical instability.

Generation of microswimmers from passive Brownian particles in a spherically aberrated optical trap.

We induce spontaneous motion that is both directed and complex in micron-sized asymmetric Brownian particles in a spherically aberrated optical trap to generate microswimmers. The aberrated optical trap is prepared in a slightly modified optical tweezers configuration where we use a refractive index mismatched cover slip leading to the formation of an annular intensity distribution near the trap focal plane. Asymmetric scattering from a micro-particle trapped in this annular trap gives rise to a net tangential force on the particle causing it to revolve spontaneously in the intensity ring. The rate of revolution can be controlled from sub-Hz to a few Hz by changing the intensity of the trapping light. Theoretical simulations performed using finite-difference time-domain method verify the experimental observations. We also experimentally demonstrate simultaneous spin and revolution of a micro-swimmer which shows that complex motion can be achieved by designing a suitable shape of a micro-swimmer in the optical potential.