  We consider exciton polaritons in a semiconductor microcavity with a
saturable absorber in the growth direction of the heterostructure. This feature
promotes additional nonlinear losses of the system with the emergence of
bistability of the condensate particles number on the nonresonant (electrical
or optical) excitation intensity. Further we demonstrate a new type of bright
spatial dissipative exciton-polariton soliton which emerges in the equilibrium
between the regions with different particle density. We develop protocols of
soliton creation and destruction. The switch to a soliton-like behavior occurs
if the cavity is exposed by a short strong laser pulse with certain energy and
duration. We estimate the characteristic times of soliton switch on and off and
the time of return to the initial cycle. In particular, we demonstrate
surprising narrowing of the spatial profile of the soliton and its vanishing at
certain temperature due to interaction of the system with the thermal bath of
acoustic phonons. We also address the role of polariton-polariton interaction
(Kerr-like nonlinearity) on formation of dissipative solitons and show that the
soliton may exist both in its presence and absence.
