Final Activity Report Summary - CLERMONT2 (Physics of microcavities)
Eleven EU universities have created a research training network aimed at studies of semiconductor microcavities, the microscopic size objects having unique optical and electronic properties. More than 400 months of pre-doctoral and post-doctoral training has been delivered to 30 young researchers who achieved an extraordinary progress in this field and established a solid basis for realisation of a new generation of opto-electronic devices based on microcavities. It has been shown that exciton-polaritons, half-ligh-half-matter quasiparticles, can form a sort of quantum liquide in the microcavities at low temperatures but also at room temperature. This polariton quantum liquid emits a monochromatic coherent light similar to the laser light. This discovery paves way to realisation of polariton lasers, light emitting diodes, optical memories, optical logic gates and parametric oscillators. The potentiality of GaN, a promising wide-band gap semiconductor, for realisation of polariton devices has been demonstrated by the consortium.