Electrically controlled photonic circuits of field-induced dipolaritons with huge nonlinearities

Abstract: Electrically controlled photonic circuits hold promise for information technologies with greatly improved energy efficiency and quantum information processing capabilities. However, weak nonlinearity and electrical response of typical photonic materials have been two critical challenges. Therefore hybrid electronic-photonic systems, such as semiconductor exciton-polaritons, have been intensely investigated for their potential to allow higher nonlinearity and electrical control, with limited success so far. Here we demonstrate an electrically-gated waveguide architecture for dipolar-polaritons that allows enhanced and electrically-controllable polariton nonlinearities, enabling an electrically-tuned reflecting switch (mirror) and transistor of the dipolar-polaritons. The polariton transistor displays blockade and anti-blockade by compressing a dilute dipolar-polariton pulse exhibiting very strong dipolar interactions. The large nonlinearities are explained using a simple density-dependent polarization field that very effectively screens the external electric field, with an order of magnitude enhancement of the nonlinearities as compared to fixed dipoles. We project that a quantum blockade at the single polariton level is feasible in such a device.