High-temperature ultrafast polariton parametric amplification in semiconductor microcavities

Cavity polaritons, the elementary optical excitations of semiconductor microcavities, may be understood as a superposition of excitons and cavity photons1. Owing to their composite nature, these bosonic particles have a distinct optical response, at the same time very fast and highly nonlinear. Very efficient light amplification due to polariton–polariton parametric scattering has recently been reported in semiconductor microcavities at liquid-helium temperatures2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11. Here we demonstrate polariton parametric amplification up to 120 K in GaAlAs-based microcavities and up to 220 K in CdTe-based microcavities. We show that the cut-off temperature for the amplification is ultimately determined by the binding energy of the exciton. A 5-µm-thick planar microcavity can amplify a weak light pulse more than 5,000 times. The effective gain coefficient of an equivalent homogeneous medium would be 107 cm-1. The subpicosecond duration and high efficiency of the amplification could be exploited for high-repetition all-optical microscopic switches and amplifiers. 105 polaritons occupy the same quantum state during the amplification, realizing a dynamical condensate of strongly interacting bosons which can be studied at high temperature.