Control of non-Markovian effects in the dynamics of polaritons in semiconductor microcavities

F. J. Rodriguez, L. Quiroga, C. Tejedor, M. D. Martin, L. Vina, R. Andre

Published 2008-03-07Version 1

We report on time-resolved photoluminescence from semiconductor microcavities showing that an optically controllable mechanism exists to turn on and off memory effects in a polariton system. By increasing the laser pumping pulse intensity we observe revivals of the decaying time-resolved photoluminescence signal, a manifestly non-Markovian behavior of the optically active polaritons. Based on an open quantum system approach we perform a comprehensive analytical and numerical study of the coupling of optically active polaritons to a structured reservoir to confirm the origin of the observed features. Our findings show that negative detunings and strong excitation should occur simultaneously for memory effects to take place.