Towards a Driven Dissipative Bose-Hubbard Model Simulator with Coupled Polariton Microcavities

An experimental study on the properties of 0D confined polaritons in InGaAs/AlGaAs based heterostructures is hereby presented. We propose a mapping between the equations describing the dynamics of a N-site network of coupled pillars and a driven-dissipative Bose-Hubbard model. Trough the experimental characterization of single and coupled pillar structures the model parameters were shown to be be highly tunable by engineering the pillar geometry and overlap. We show that the on-site nonlinearity is temperature-dependent. Moreover, when investigating the power-dependent stady state of a two-site heterostructure, a tunneling-induced parametric instability is observed.