Boosted Optomechanics with a Fluid of Nonlinear Polaritons

Abstract

Merging optomechanics and polaritonics opens stimulating perspectives like the giant enhancement of optomechanical interaction and the enrichment of optomechanics with effective nonlinear photons. The experimental implementation of these concepts has however remained elusive. Here we report on the resonant optical control of polaritonic optomechanical resonators constituted of semiconductor disks embedding quantum wells. Whispering gallery photons and quantum well excitons strongly couple, leading to the emergence of polaritons that couple to the mechanical vibrations of the disk. We perform resonant optomechanical frequency response experiments on these resonators, modeled introducing a minimal set of constitutive equations, from which we extract the polariton-modified optomechanical coupling $g_0$ and the polariton nonlinearities. We observe a boost of $g_0$ by more than a decade compared to bare photons, reaching to a record $g_0$ for whispering gallery resonators of $22$ MHz, and analyze experimentally and theoretically its evolution as function of the polariton's composition. We also measure a clear hierarchy of three polaritonic nonlinearities, again analyzed as function of polariton composition, establishing a bridge between past unconciliated reports in polaritonics. Grounded on experimental and theoretical foundations, resonant polaritonic optomechanics is set ready for an optomechanical exploration of quantum fluids of polaritons.