Bose-Einstein Condensation of Photons in a Vertical-Cavity Surfaceemitting Laser

Photons are the first ever particles considered in the Bose-Einstein statistics and the most abundant bosons in nature. Surprisingly, photonic gases were one of the latest to demonstrate Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) [1], despite many analogies developed over the years between laser physics and BEC. Recently, semiconductor lasers have been proposed to be a promising direction in photon BECs at room temperature [2].