122 research outputs found
Bright single photon emission from a quantum dot in a circular Bragg grating microcavity
Bright single photon emission from single quantum dots in suspended circular
Bragg grating microcavities is demonstrated. This geometry has been designed to
achieve efficient (> 50 %) single photon extraction into a near-Gaussian shaped
far-field pattern, modest (~10x) Purcell enhancement of the radiative rate, and
a spectral bandwidth of a few nanometers. Measurements of fabricated devices
show progress towards these goals, with collection efficiencies as high as ~10%
demonstrated with moderate spectral bandwidth and rate enhancement. Photon
correlation measurements are performed under above-bandgap excitation (pump
wavelength = 780 nm to 820 nm) and confirm the single photon character of the
collected emission. While the measured sources are all antibunched and
dominantly composed of single photons, the multi-photon probability varies
significantly. Devices exhibiting tradeoffs between collection efficiency,
Purcell enhancement, and multi-photon probability are explored and the results
are interpreted with the help of finite-difference time-domain simulations.
Below-bandgap excitation resonant with higher states of the quantum dot and/or
cavity (pump wavelength = 860 nm to 900 nm) shows a near-complete suppression
of multi-photon events and may circumvent some of the aforementioned tradeoffs.Comment: 11 pages, 12 figure
A circular dielectric grating for vertical extraction of single quantum dot emission
We demonstrate a nanostructure composed of partially etched annular trenches
in a suspended GaAs membrane, designed for efficient and moderately broadband
(approx. 5 nm) emission extraction from single InAs quantum dots. Simulations
indicate that a dipole embedded in the nanostructure center radiates upwards
into free space with a nearly Gaussian far-field, allowing a collection
efficiency > 80 % with a high numerical aperture (NA=0.7) optic, and with 12X
Purcell radiative rate enhancement. Fabricated devices exhibit an approx. 10 %
photon collection efficiency with a NA=0.42 objective, a 20X improvement over
quantum dots in unpatterned GaAs. A fourfold exciton lifetime reduction
indicates moderate Purcell enhancement.Comment: (3 pages
Multiple time scale blinking in InAs quantum dot single-photon sources
We use photon correlation measurements to study blinking in single,
epitaxially-grown self-assembled InAs quantum dots situated in circular Bragg
grating and microdisk cavities. The normalized second-order correlation
function g(2)(\tau) is studied across eleven orders of magnitude in time, and
shows signatures of blinking over timescales ranging from tens of nanoseconds
to tens of milliseconds. The g(2)(\tau) data is fit to a multi-level system
rate equation model that includes multiple non-radiating (dark) states, from
which radiative quantum yields significantly less than 1 are obtained. This
behavior is observed even in situations for which a direct histogramming
analysis of the emission time-trace data produces inconclusive results
Optomechanical transduction of an integrated silicon cantilever probe using a microdisk resonator
Sensitive transduction of the motion of a microscale cantilever is central to
many applications in mass, force, magnetic resonance, and displacement sensing.
Reducing cantilever size to nanoscale dimensions can improve the bandwidth and
sensitivity of techniques like atomic force microscopy, but current optical
transduction methods suffer when the cantilever is small compared to the
achievable spot size. Here, we demonstrate sensitive optical transduction in a
monolithic cavity-optomechanical system in which a sub-picogram silicon
cantilever with a sharp probe tip is separated from a microdisk optical
resonator by a nanoscale gap. High quality factor (Q ~ 10^5) microdisk optical
modes transduce the cantilever's MHz frequency thermally-driven vibrations with
a displacement sensitivity of ~ 4.4x10^-16 m\sqrt[2]{Hz} and bandwidth > 1 GHz,
and a dynamic range > 10^6 is estimated for a 1 s measurement.
Optically-induced stiffening due to the strong optomechanical interaction is
observed, and engineering of probe dynamics through cantilever design and
electrostatic actuation is illustrated
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