Light-Matter Interactions in Semiconductors: An Endless Playground for Fundamental Physics and Applications

Konstantinos Lagoudakisstudied in at the National KapodestrianUniversity in Athens, Greece where he received a Bachelor of Science in Physics with specialization on Solid State Physics. He went on with his studies at Imperial College of Science and Technology in London, United Kingdom where he received a Master of Science in Optics and Photonics. He then moved to the EcolePolytechniqueFédéralede Lausanne in Switzerland where he completed a PhD on fundamental properties of exciton-polaritoncondensates. His ground-breaking experimental demonstrations of integer and fractional vortices in polaritoncondensates earned him the prestigious Swiss Physical Society award in 2010 and the EPFL doctorate award in 2012. Since 2012 he has been a postdoctoral research fellow at the GinztonLab of Stanford University where he has developed a magnetic spectroscopy experiment for the investigation and coherent manipulation of charged quantum dots in nanoresonatorstowards the creation of efficient spin photon interfaces

Light matter interactions lie in the heart of several phenomena of fundamental and applied interest. Both condensation of exciton- polaritonsin semiconductor microcavitiesas well as quantum information processing with charged quantum dots in micro-resonators rely on strong light matter interactions. In this talk, I will present some of my most striking experimental findings in both of these fields: from vorticity and Josephson oscillations in polaritonicquantum fluids to pumping and coherent control of individual spins in self-assembled and site-controlled quantum dots. Although polaritoncondensates and related phenomena originate from the collective character of the particles involved making them diametrically different from the singular character of the physics of quantum dots, merging these two fields has a great potential for the creation of novel scalable quantum technologies. .