Spatio-temporal coherence in vertically emitting GaAs-based electrically driven polariton lasers

Abstract

We report on the implementation of a GaAs-based, vertically emitting electrically pumped polariton laser operated at cryogenic temperatures. The structure consists of a high quality factor AlGaAs/AlAs microcavity (Q=15 000) with two stacks of four GaAs quantum wells and features a Rabi splitting of 11 meV. Polariton lasing manifests by a clear threshold in the input–output characteristics of our device with a sharp drop in the emission linewidth and a continuous blueshift of 0.7 meV above threshold with increasing injection current. We measure spatial and temporal coherence of our device in the condensed phase by utilizing interference spectroscopy. Our results clearly demonstrate that electrically driven polariton lasers have promise as monolithic polaritonic sources of coherent light.