Superfluidity in polariton condensates

Exciton-polaritons, two-dimensional composite bosons arising from the quantum mixture of excitons and photons, can manifest many-body quantum effects at liquid He temperatures (4 K). Interestingly, polaritons are predicted to behave as particular quantum fluids due to their out of equilibrium character, arising from their reduced lifetime (shorter than their thermalization time). Here we report the observation of superfluid motion of polaritons in semiconductor microcavities both under cw and pulsed excitation. Among other signatures, superfluidity is manifested via the absence of scattering of the polariton condensates when encountering a localized defect in their flow path.

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