Welcome to the website of the group « Photonic lattices » of the Laboratoire Phlam of the CNRS and University of Lille. Nonlinearities in semiconductor and dielectric materials modify the properties of light to the point of making it behave as a dense fluid. Vortices, solitons, shock waves, turbulence or superfluidity are some of the most remarkable phenomena accessible in fluids of light. Microcavity polaritons is an excellent platform to study these phenomena (it is in this system that the first observation of superfluidity of light was observed). Polaritons are mixed quasiparticles arising from the strong coupling between semiconductor quantum-well excitons and photons confined in a micrometre size cavity. They present extraordinary nonlinearities thanks to their matter part, while their photonic part allows confinement in lattices with controlled geometry and hoping from site to site, opening the way to the study of propagation and nonlinearities in engineered photonic lattices.

Using this extraordinary platform, we are currently studying superfluidity and turbulence in planar structures, and topological photonics in polariton lattices. For further details, click here.