2019/12/23 by S. Barland, Pierre Azam, Barland, S. +7 · 3 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Mechanical and Optical Resonators #Optics (physics.optics) #Photonic and Optical Devices #Semiconductor Lasers and Optical Devices
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1912.11358
openalex publication_date 2019/12/23 · openalex created_date 2020/01/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We report on an experimental study of photon thermalization and condensation in a semiconductor microresonator in the weak-coupling regime. We measure the dispersion relation of light and the photon mass in a single-wavelength, broad-area resonator. The observed luminescence spectrum is compatible with a room-temperature, thermal-equilibrium distribution. A phase transition, identified by a saturation of the population at high energies and a superlinear increase of the occupation at low energy, takes place when the phase-space density is of order unity. We explain our observations by Bose-Einstein condensation of photons in equilibrium with a particle reservoir and discuss the relation with laser emission.