Dynamics of an Exciton-Polariton Condensate in a Tilted Ring Microcavity*

We have created polariton condensates in a semiconductor microcavity with a lifetime greater than the equilibration time scale for the system at cryogenic temperature (below 10 K). By etching the microcavity into ring micro-channels of width 15 μm we confined the condensate to flow in a circular trap. We have directly imaged the motion of the condensate in the ring using time-resolved optical microscopy techniques. We study both the dynamical and the steady-state regime and present quantitative bounds on the strength of the interactions between polaritons in this system. We also measure the spatial coherence of the condensate in these micro-channels leading to important implications for scaling such networks of micro-channels for simulating NP-hard problems.