We report the observation of polaritonic bistability in semiconductor microcavities in the strong-coupling regime. The origin of bistability is the polariton-polariton interaction, which gives rise to a Kerr-like nonlinearity. The experimental results are in good agreement with a simple model taking transverse effects into account.

• Received 1 July 2003

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.69.023809