Observation of Spin–Orbit Coupled Polariton Vortices at Room Temperature

Spin-orbit coupling gives rise to intriguing physical phenomena in bosonic condensates such as formation of stripe phases and domains with vortex arrays. However, how the non-Hermiticity affects the spatial distribution of spin-orbit coupled topological defects such as the vortex pair is still challenging to study. In the present work, we realize a nonequilibrium room-temperature exciton polariton condensate within a microdisk potential in a liquid crystal (LC) microcavity. We use the interplay of TE-TM mode splitting and Rashba-Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling (RDSOC) to realize electrically tunable polariton vortex pairs with locked spin and orbital angular momentum. Importantly, the non-Hermiticity of RDSOC bands leads to unidirectional transportation of the vortex pair such that they move to the opposite edges of the microdisk depending on their spin. Our result is robust against sample imperfections and paves the way to investigate complex states of light for non-Hermitian quantum optical information processing within optoelectronic chips.