Dynamics of polariton solitons in semiconductors: formation, propagation, and interaction

The physical cause which leads to polariton soliton formation is an exact balance between the dispersive spreading of a polariton pulse and third order nonlinear effects; as a result, the polariton wave packet propagates through a crystal without changing its shape. The formation of steady-state polariton pulses is not only of fundamental interest as a phenomenon not encountered in conventional linear optics of semiconductors, it may also prove useful for applications in all-optical devices. We consider formation of bright and dark polariton solitons in semiconductor crystals and show that these solitons have some properties which are different from the properties of the solitons in optical fibers. We describe optical pulse propagation in a semiconductor crystal in the spectral region of an exciton resonance