Mainz 2017 – scientific programme

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 40: Poster: Quantum Optics and Photonics II

Q 40.1: Poster

Wednesday, March 8, 2017, 17:00–19:00, P OG2

Coupled Photon Condensates in Micropotentials — •Erik Busley, Christian Kurtscheid, Christian Schilz, David Dung, Tobias Damm, Frank Vewinger, Julian Schmitt, and Martin Weitz — Institut für Angewandte Physik, Universität Bonn, Wegelerstr. 8, D-53115 Bonn

We present a recent experimental realization of coupled photon condensates in a microstructured optical microcavity. In earlier work we have realized Bose-Einstein condensation of photons in a dye-filled optical microcavity at room temperature. The dye solution acts both as a heat bath and a particle reservoir for the trapped photon gas. Thermal contact between the photons and the molecules is achieved by subsequent absorption and reemission processes in the high-finesse bispherical cavity. The microresonator introduces a low-frequency cutoff to the dispersion relation, resulting in a nontrivial ground state and the harmonically trapped photon gas becomes formally equivalent to a 2D gas of massive bosons.

In the here reported work, the cavity geometry is controlled by permanently deforming an initially plane mirror surface by thermo-optically induced delamination of the dielectric layers. Heat deposited by an absorbed green laser beam causes the mirror surface to bend up locally, and by transverse steering of the laser beam over the mirror surface one can create arbitrary trapping potentials for a photon gas within the microcavity. The deformation setup and measurements on photon tunneling between two lattice sites are presented.