Dynamic stark effect in strongly coupled microcavity exciton polaritons

We present experimental observations of a nonresonant dynamic Stark shift in strongly coupled microcavity quantum well exciton polaritons-a system which provides a rich variety of solid-state collective phenomena. The Stark effect is demonstrated in a GaAs/AlGaAs system at 10K by femtosecond pump-probe measurements, with the blueshift approaching the meV scale for a pump fluence of 2mJcm ^-2 and 50meV red detuning, in good agreement with theory. The energy level structure of the strongly coupled polariton Rabidoublet remains unaffected by the blueshift. The demonstrated effect should allow generation of ultrafast density-independent potentials and imprinting well-defined phase profiles on polariton condensates, providing a powerful tool for manipulation of these condensates, similar to dipole potentials in cold-atom systems.