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Cited by 38Strong Light-Matter InteractionsPhotonic Crystals and ApplicationsTopological Materials and Phenomena

Emerging supersolidity in photonic-crystal polariton condensates

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Trypogeorgos, Dimitrios, Gianfrate, Antonio, Landini, Manuele, Nigro, Davide, Gerace, Dario, Carusotto, Iacopo, Riminucci, Fabrizio, Baldwin, Kirk W. +5 more·2025·Nature
DOI 10.1038/s41586-025-08616-9
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Abstract

A supersolid is a counter-intuitive phase of matter in which its constituent particles are arranged into a crystalline structure, yet they are free to flow without friction. This requires the particles to share a global macroscopic phase while being able to reduce their total energy by spontaneous, spatial self-organization. The existence of the supersolid phase of matter was speculated more than 50 years ago 1-4. However, only recently has there been convincing experimental evidence, mainly using ultracold atomic Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) coupled to electromagnetic fields. There, various guises of the supersolid were created using atoms coupled to high-finesse cavities 5,6, with large magnetic dipole moments 7-13, and spin-orbit-coupled, two-component systems showing stripe phases 14-16. Here we provide experimental evidence of a new implementation of the supersolid phase in a driven-dissipative, non-equilibrium context based on exciton-polaritons condensed in a topologically non-trivial, bound state in the continuum (BiC) with exceptionally low losses, realized in a photonic-crystal waveguide. We measure the density modulation of the polaritonic state indicating the breaking of translational symmetry with a precision of several parts in a thousand. Direct access to the phase of the wavefunction allows us to also measure the local coherence of the supersolid. We demonstrate the potential of our synthetic photonic material to host phonon dynamics and a multimode excitation spectrum.

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  • While the main condensation process occurs at the top of a photonic band, a spatial modulation of the condensate density spontaneously appears as the result of coherent parametric scattering processes into finite wavevector modes in the side photonic bands.

    “While the main condensation process occurs at the top of a photonic band, a spatial modulation of the condensate density spontaneously appears as the result of coherent parametric scattering processes into finite wavevector modes in the side photonic bands.”

    From How to exploit driving and dissipation to stabilize and manipulate quantum many-body states (2025) · cites this paper as [115]

    Split into 2 atoms — 1 confirmed, 1 partially supported, 0 disputed, 0 misattributed, 0 unverifiable. Expand the claim to see per-atom verdicts.

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  • Quantum fluids of light can simultaneously display long-range coherence and a spontaneously formed spatially periodic density modulation.

    “A presently very active direction of research concerns the realization of quantum fluids of light that simultaneously display a long-range coherence and a spontaneously formed spatially periodic density modulation.This physics has been recently investigated in both theory and experiments [114,115] using devices displaying several photonic bands in the same energy range.”

    From How to exploit driving and dissipation to stabilize and manipulate quantum many-body states (2025) · cites this paper as [115]

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Trypogeorgos, D., Gianfrate, A., Landini, M., Nigro, D., Gerace, D., Carusotto, I., Riminucci, F., Baldwin, K. W., Pfeiffer, L. N., Martone, G. I., De Giorgi, M., Ballarini, D., & Sanvitto, D.
Affiliations
  • Istituto di Nanotecnologia (IT)
  • Universität Innsbruck (AT)
  • University of Pavia (IT)
  • University of Trento (IT)
  • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (US)
  • Princeton University (US)
Corresponding author
Trypogeorgos, Dimitrios
ORCID
Venue
Nature
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2025-03-05
Volume
639
Issue
8054
Pages
337-341
ISSN
  • 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
  • 1476-4687
DOI
10.1038/s41586-025-08616-9
OpenAlex
W4408245938
Cited by
38
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 24 · 2025: 14
FWCI
13.81
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Nature (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (cc-by)
  • Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) (cc-by)
Funders
  • National Science Foundation (DEAC02-05CH11231, GBMF9615, 2011750)
  • U.S. Department of Energy (-AC02-05CH11231, 05CH11231, DE AC02 05CH11231, DE-AC02-)
  • Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (GBMF9615)
  • Princeton University
  • European Commission ([IR0000016, ID D2B8D520, B53C22001750006, DE-AC02-05CH11231, PE 0000023, D2B8D520, CUP B53C22001750006)
  • Russian Foundation for Basic Research
  • Ministero degli Affari Esteri e della Cooperazione Internazionale
  • Regione Puglia
  • Provincia Autonoma di Trento
  • Office of Science (DEAC02–05CH11231, AC02-05CH11231, DE-AC02)
  • Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, Harvard University (DMR2011750, DE-AC02-05CH11231)
  • Division of Materials Research (DMR2011750, 2011750)
  • Basic Energy Sciences (DE-AC02, DE-AC02-05CH11231., AC02–05CH11231)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics › Strong Light-Matter Interactions
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics › Photonic Crystals and Applications
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics › Topological Materials and Phenomena
Keywords
supersolidity, exciton-polaritons, exciton-polariton condensates, photonic crystal waveguides, bound states in the continuum, driven-dissipative systems, nonequilibrium phase transitions, translational symmetry breaking, density modulation, wave function phase, local coherence, lattice dynamics
MeSH terms
Crystallization, Photons

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