Intensity spiral patterns in a semiconductor microresonator

Spiral waves appear frequently in nature. They have been studied, e.g., in hydrodynamic systems, chemical reactions, and in a large variety of biological and physical systems [ Grill et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 75 3368 (1995) Goryachev and Kapral Phys. Rev. Lett. 76 1619 (1996)]. In contrast to chemical and hydrodynamic processes where the field amplitude exhibits the spiral patterns (intensity spirals), in optics the spiral structures relate generally to the phase structure of the optical field (so-called “optical vortices” [ Lugiato et al. Adv. At., Mol., Opt. Phys. 40 229 (1999) Arecchi et al. Phys. Rep. 318 1 (1999) Weiss et al. Appl. Phys. B:Lasers Opt. B68 151 (1999)]). Thus the question arises whether amplitude spiral patterns can exist also in optics. In [ Lodahl et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 85 4506 (2000)] the existence of such spiral patterns in optics was theoretically predicted. Experimentally, intensity spiral patterns were shown to exist in an optical feedback system with radially symmetric excitation intensity [ Huneus et al. Appl. Phys. B:Lasers Opt. B76 191 (2000)]. We show here that such spiral patterns occur in a widely studied system, the semiconductor microcavity. The pattern formation is influenced here by the phase- as well as the intensity structure of the exciting light field.