Spatial Coherence and Stability in a Disordered Organic Polariton Condensate

: Daskalakis, Konstantinos S.; Maier S. A.; Kéna-Cohen S.

Publisher: American Physical Society (APS)

: 2015

Physical Review Letters

: PHYS REV LETT

: 035301

: 115

: 3

: 5

: 0031-9007

: 1079-7114

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.035301

: https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.115.035301

Although only a handful of organic materials have shown polariton condensation, their study is rapidly becoming more accessible. The spontaneous appearance of long-range spatial coherence is often recognized as a defining feature of such condensates. In this Letter, we study the emergence of spatial coherence in an organic microcavity and demonstrate a number of unique features stemming from the peculiarities of this material set. Despite its disordered nature, we find that correlations extend over the entire spot size, and we measure g((1))(r, r') values of nearly unity at short distances and of 50% for points separated by nearly 10 mu m. We show that for large spots, strong shot-to-shot fluctuations emerge as varying phase gradients and defects, including the spontaneous formation of vortices. These are consistent with the presence of modulation instabilities. Furthermore, we find that measurements with flat-top spots are significantly influenced by disorder and can, in some cases, lead to the formation of mutually incoherent localized condensates.