Welcome to the website of Alberto Amo García, CNRS researcher at Laboratoire Phlam at the 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.

Selected publications

• Optically defined cavities in driven-dissipative photonic lattices
  O. Jamadi, B. Real, K. Sawicki, C. Hainaut, A. Gonzalez-Tudela, N. Pernet, I. Sagnes, M. Morassi, A. Lemaitre, L. Le Gratiet, A. Harouri, S. Ravets, J. Bloch and A. Amo, arXiv:2112.07753
• Topological gap solitons in a 1D non-Hermitian lattice
  N. Pernet, P. St-Jean, D. D. Solnyshkov, G. Malpuech, N. Carlon Zambon, B. Real, O. Jamadi, A. Lemaître, M. Morassi, L. Le Gratiet, T. Baptiste, A. Harouri, I. Sagnes, A. Amo, S. Ravets, J. Bloch, arXiv:2101.01038
• Microcavity polaritons for topological photonics
  Dmitry D. Solnyshkov, Guillaume Malpuech, Philippe St-Jean, Sylvain Ravets, Jacqueline Bloch, Alberto Amo, Opt. Mater. Express 11, 1119 (2021)
• Measuring topological invariants in polaritonic graphene
  P. St-Jean, A. Dauphin, P. Massignan, B. Real, O. Jamadi, M. Milićević, A. Lemaître, A. Harouri, L. Le Gratiet, I. Sagnes, S. Ravets, J. Bloch, A. Amo, Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 127403 (2021)
• Type-III and tilted Dirac cones emerging from flat bands in photonic orbital graphene
  see Synopsis in Physics
  M. Milićević, G. Montambaux, T. Ozawa, O. Jamadi, B. Real, I. Sagnes, A. Lemaître, L. Le Gratiet, A. Harouri, J. Bloch, A. Amo, Phys. Rev. X 9, 31010 (2019)
• Topological Photonics
  T. Ozawa, H. M. Price, A. Amo, N. Goldman, M. Hafezi, L. Lu, M. Rechtsman, D. Schuster, J. Simon, O. Zilberberg, I. Carusotto, Rev. Mod. Phys. 91, 15006 (2019).
• Lasing in topological edge states of a one-dimensional lattice 
  see focus
  P. St-Jean, V. Goblot, E. Galopin, A. Lemaître, T. Ozawa, L. Le Gratiet, I.Sagnes, J. Bloch and A. Amo, Nat. Photon. 11, 651 (2017).
• Exploring topological edge states in photonic quasicrystals
  F. Baboux, E. Levy, A. Lemaître, C. Gomez, E. Galopin, L. Le Gratiet, I. Sagnes, A. Amo J. Bloch, and E. Akkermans, Phys. Rev. B 95, 161114(R) (2017).
• Orbital edge states in a photonic honeycomb lattice
  M. Milićević, T. Ozawa, G. Montambaux, I. Carusotto, E. Galopin, A. Lemaître, L. Le Gratiet, I. Sagnes, J. Bloch, and A. Amo, Phys. Rev Lett. 118, 107403 (2017).
• Interaction-induced hopping phase in driven-dissipative coupled photonic microcavities
  S. R. K. Rodriguez, A. Amo, I. Sagnes, L. Le Gratiet, E. Galopin, A. Lemaître, and J. Bloch, Nat. Commun. 7, 11887 (2016).
• Phase-controlled bistability of a dark soliton train in a polariton fluid
  V. Goblot, H. S. Nguyen, I. Carusotto, E. Galopin, A. Lemaître, I. Sagnes, A. Amo and J. Bloch, Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 217401 (2016).
• Bosonic Condensation and Disorder-Induced Localization in a Flat Band
  F. Baboux, L. Ge, T. Jacqmin, M. Biondi, E. Galopin, A. Lemaître, L. Le Gratiet, I. Sagnes, S. Schmidt, H. E. Türeci, A. Amo and J. Bloch,  Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 066402 (2016).
• Engineering spin-orbit coupling for photons and polariton condensates in microstructures
  V. G. Sala, D. D. Solnyshkov, I. Carusotto, T. Jacqmin, A. Lemaître, H. Terças, A. Nalitov, M. Abbarchi, E. Galopin, I. Sagnes, J. Bloch, G. Malpuech and A. Amo, PRX 5, 011034 (2015). View Synopsys in Physics.
• Acoustic Black Hole in a Stationary Hydrodynamic Flow of Microcavity Polaritons
  H. S. Nguyen, D. Gerace, I. Carusotto, D. Sanvitto, E. Galopin, A. Lemaître, I. Sagnes, J. Bloch, A. Amo, Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 036402 (2015).
• Direct observation of Dirac cones and a flatband in a honeycomb lattice for polaritons
  T. Jacqmin, I. Carusotto, I. Sagnes, M. Abbarchi, D. Solnyshkov, G. Malpuech, E. Galopin, A. Lemaître, J. Bloch, A. Amo, Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 116402 (2014).
• Macroscopic quantum self-trapping and Josephson oscillations of exciton polaritons
  M. Abbarchi, A. Amo, V. G. Sala, D. Solnyshkov, H. Flayac, L. Ferrier, I. Sagnes, E. Galopin, A. Lemaitre, G. Malpuech, J. Bloch, Nature Phys. 9, 275 (2013).