Quantum fluids of light in 2D artificial reconfigurable aperiodic crystals with tailored coupling.

Alyatkin, Sergey; Sitnik, Kirill; Daníelsson, Valtýr Kári; Kartashov, Yaroslav V; Töpfer, Julian D; Sigurðsson, Helgi; Lagoudakis, Pavlos G · Sci Adv · 2025

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Aperiodic crystals are the intermediates between strictly periodic crystalline matter and amorphous solids. The lack of translational symmetry combined with intrinsic long-range order endows aperiodic crystals with unique physical characteristics, while, at the same time, markedly enriching the spectrum and localization properties. Here, we demonstrate exciton-polariton condensation in a two-dimensional Penrose tiling with <i>C</i><sub>10</sub> rotational symmetry-the evidence of quasicrystalline order in a quantum fluid of light. We identify a regime, wherein near-perfect delocalization and synchronization of a quantum fluid of light occurs at mesoscopic length scales extending beyond 100× the healing length and the size of each individual condensate. Realizing long-range order in fully reconfigurable quasicrystals of nonlinear and open-dissipative quantum fluids in the presence of artificial defects provides insights into phase synchronization between the condensates in unconventional, aperiodic settings.