Observation of Zitterbewegung in photonic microcavities.

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 cav

SUBMITTER: Lovett S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10205819 | biostudies-literature | 2023 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature