Spin rings in semiconductor microcavities

New effects of self-organization and polarization pattern formation in semiconductor microcavities, operating in the nonlinear regime, are predicted and theoretically analyzed. We show that a spatially inhomogeneous elliptically polarized optical cw pump leads to the formation of a strongly circularly polarized ring in real space. This effect is due to the polarization multistability of cavity polaritons which was recently predicted. The possible switching between different stable configurations allows the realization of a localized spin memory element, suitable for an optical data storage device.