Observation of <italic style="font-style: italic">Zitterbewegung</italic> in photonic microcavities

Seth Lovett; Paul M. Walker; Alexey Osipov; Alexey Yulin; Pooja Uday Naik; Charles E. Whittaker; Ivan A. Shelykh; Maurice S. Skolnick; Dmitry N. Krizhanovskii

doi:10.1038/s41377-023-01162-x

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Observation of Zitterbewegung in photonic microcavities

Original Articles

- Observation of Zitterbewegung in photonic microcavities
- Light: Science & Applications Vol. 12, Issue 6, Pages: 1084-1090(2023)
- Affiliations：
  
  1.Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sheffield, S3 7RH Sheffield, UK
  2.Department of Physics and Technology, ITMO University, St. Petersburg 197101, Russia
  3.Science Institute, University of Iceland, Dunhagi 3, IS-107 Reykjavik, Iceland
- Author bio：
  
  Paul M. Walker (p.m.walker@sheffield.ac.uk)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/s41377-023-01162-x
  CLC：
- Published：30 June 2023，
  
  Published Online：23 May 2023，
  
  Received：31 October 2022，
  
  Revised：12 April 2023，
  
  Accepted：14 April 2023
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Lovett, S. et al. Observation of Zitterbewegung in photonic microcavities. Light: Science & Applications, 12, 1084-1090 (2023).
DOI：

Lovett, S. et al. Observation of Zitterbewegung in photonic microcavities. Light: Science & Applications, 12, 1084-1090 (2023). DOI： 10.1038/s41377-023-01162-x.

摘要

Abstract

We present and experimentally study the effects of the photonic spin–orbit coupling on the real space propagation of polariton wavepackets in planar semiconductor microcavities and polaritonic analogues of graphene. In particular

we demonstrate the appearance of an analogue

Zitterbewegung

effect

a term which translates as 'trembling motion' in English

which was originally proposed for relativistic Dirac electrons and consisted of the oscillations of the centre of mass of a wavepacket in the direction perpendicular to its propagation. For a planar microcavity

we observe regular

Zitterbewegung

oscillations whose amplitude and period depend on the wavevector of the polaritons. We then extend these results to a honeycomb lattice of coupled microcavity resonators. Compared to the planar cavity

such lattices are inherently more tuneable and versatile

allowing simulation of the Hamiltonians of a wide range of important physical systems. We observe an oscillation pattern related to the presence of the spin-split Dirac cones in the dispersion. In both cases

the experimentally observed oscillations are in good agreement with theoretical modelling and independently measured bandstructure parameters

providing strong evidence for the observation of

Zitterbewegung

关键词

Keywords

references

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Observation of Zitterbewegung in photonic microcavities

DOI：10.1038/s41377-023-01162-x

摘要

Abstract

关键词

Keywords

references