W. Jason Morgan (1935-2023).

Discoverer of plate tectonics and mantle plumes.

Strong Amplification of Coherent Acoustic Phonons by Intraminiband Currents in a Semiconductor Superlattice.

Sound amplification in an electrically biased superlattice (SL) is studied in optical experiments with 100 fs time resolution. Coherent SL phonons with frequencies of 40, 375, and 410 GHz give rise to oscillatory reflectivity changes. With currents from 0.

Spatial Patterns of Dissipative Polariton Solitons in Semiconductor Microcavities.

We report propagating bound microcavity polariton soliton arrays consisting of multipeak structures either along (x) or perpendicular (y) to the direction of propagation. Soliton arrays of up to five solitons are observed, with the number of solitons controlled by the size and power of the triggering laser pulse. The breakup along the x direction occurs when the effective area of the trigger pulse exceeds the characteristic soliton size determined by polariton-polariton interactions.

Effects of spin-dependent interactions on polarization of bright polariton solitons.

We report on the spin properties of bright polariton solitons supported by an external pump to compensate losses. We observe robust circularly polarized solitons when a circularly polarized pump is applied, a result attributed to phase synchronization between nondegenerate TE and TM polarized polariton modes at high momenta. For the case of a linearly polarized pump, either σ+ or σ- circularly polarized bright solitons can be switched on in a controlled way by a σ+ or σ- writing beam, respectively.

Frequency modulation spectroscopy with a THz quantum-cascade laser.

We report on a terahertz spectrometer for high-resolution molecular spectroscopy based on a quantum-cascade laser. High-frequency modulation (up to 50 MHz) of the laser driving current produces a simultaneous modulation of the frequency and amplitude of the laser output. The modulation generates sidebands, which are symmetrically positioned with respect to the laser carrier frequency.