Speaker
Description
Supersolidity is a counter-intuitive and very fascinating phase of matter, predicted more than 50 years ago and realized only in recent years in various configurations by using condensates of cold atomic clouds: a very coherent quantum system that simultaneously behaves as a superfluid, i.e., having the characteristic property of flowing without viscosity or friction, and as a system possessing characteristics that are typical of crystalline solids, such as the periodic arrangement in space. In this seminar, a recent realization of this very exotic phase in a nanostructured semiconductor platform will be described, showing how supersolidity can arise as an emerging property in suitably engineered nanostructures supporting exciton-polaritons, elementary excitations arising from the strong light-matter coupling between quantum well excitons and low-loss photonic eigenmodes in periodically patterned planar waveguides, i.e., photonic crystal polaritons. First, it will be shown how this platform allows to explore the rich analogies between nonlinearly interacting polaritons and weakly interacting Bose gases [1,2,3]. Then, the subtle analogies and differences between such an emerging supersolid phase and its atomic counterpart will be discussed [4,5]. Photonic crystal polaritons propose themselves as an ideal analog quantum simulator to study exotic phases of matter.
References
[1] V. Ardizzone, et al., Nature 605, 447 (2022).
[2] D. Nigro and D. Gerace, Phys. Rev. B 108, 085305 (2023).
[3] F. Riminucci, A. Gianfrate, D. Nigro, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 131, 246901 (2023).
[4] D. Nigro, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 134 056002 (2025).
[5] D. Trypogeorgos, et al., Nature 639, 337-341 (2025).
