LO-phonon assisted polariton laser

We demonstrate the role of LO-phonon assisted polariton relaxation in reducing the stimulation threshold in strongly coupled microcavities. When the energy of the relaxation bottleneck is one LO-phonon above the ground polariton state, we observe a ten-fold improvement of the polariton relaxation rate in the linear regime, and a two-fold reduction of the threshold to the non-linear polariton lasing regime.