Ultrafast electric control of cavity mediated single-photon and photon-pair generation with semiconductor quantum dots

Employing the ultrafast control of electronic states of a semiconductor quantum dot in a cavity, we introduce an approach to achieve on-demand emission of single photons with almost perfect indistinguishability and photon pairs with near ideal entanglement. Our scheme is based on optical excitation off resonant to a cavity mode followed by ultrafast control of the electronic states using the time-dependent quantum-confined Stark effect, which then allows for cavity-resonant emission. Our theoretical analysis considers cavity-loss mechanisms, the Stark effect, and phonon-induced dephasing, allowing realistic predictions for finite temperatures. © 2021 American Physical Society.Immediate accessThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

Thermo-Optic Characterization of Silicon Nitride Resonators for Cryogenic Photonic Circuits

In this paper, we characterize the Thermo-optic properties of silicon nitride ring resonators between 18 and 300 K. The Thermo-optic coefficients of the silicon nitride core and the oxide cladding are measured by studying the temperature dependence of the resonance wavelengths. The resonant modes show low temperature dependence at cryogenic temperatures and higher dependence as the temperature increases. We find the Thermo-optic coefficients of PECVD silicon nitride and silicon oxide to be 2.51 ± 0.08 E- 5 K-1 and 0.96 ± 0.09 E-5 K-1 at room temperature while decreasing by an order of magnitude when cooling to 18 K. To show the effect of variations in the thermo-optic coefficients on device performance, we study the tuning of a fully integrated electrically tunable filter as a function of voltage for different temperatures. The presented results provide new practical guidelines in designing photonic circuits for studying low-temperature optical phenomena.QN/Kavli Nanolab Delf

Crystal phase quantum well emission with digital control

One of the major challenges in the growth of quantum well and quantum dot heterostructures is the realization of atomically sharp interfaces. Nanowires provide a new opportunity to engineer the band structure as they facilitate the controlled switching of the crystal structure between the zinc-blende (ZB) and wurtzite (WZ) phases. Such a crystal phase switching results in the formation of crystal phase quantum wells (CPQWs) and quantum dots (CPQDs). For GaP CPQWs, the inherent electric fields due to the discontinuity of the spontaneous polarization at the WZ/ZB junctions lead to the confinement of both types of charge carriers at the opposite interfaces of the WZ/ZB/WZ structure. This confinement leads to a novel type of transition across a ZB flat plate barrier. Here, we show digital tuning of the visible emission of WZ/ZB/WZ CPQWs in a GaP nanowire by changing the thickness of the ZB barrier. The energy spacing between the sharp emission lines is uniform and is defined by the addition of single ZB monolayers. The controlled growth of identical quantum wells with atomically flat interfaces at predefined positions featuring digitally tunable discrete emission energies may provide a new route to further advance entangled photons in solid state quantum systems

Nonlinear down-conversion in a single quantum dot

Tailored nanoscale quantum light sources, matching the specific needs of use cases, are crucial building blocks for photonic quantum technologies. Several different approaches to realize solid-state quantum emitters with high performance have been pursued and different concepts for energy tuning have been established. However, the properties of the emitted photons are always defined by the individual quantum emitter and can therefore not be controlled with full flexibility. Here we introduce an all-optical nonlinear method to tailor and control the single photon emission. We demonstrate a laser-controlled down-conversion process from an excited state of a semiconductor quantum three-level system. Based on this concept, we realize energy tuning and polarization control of the single photon emission with a control-laser field. Our results mark an important step towards tailored single photon emission from a photonic quantum system based on quantum optical principles. © 2022, The Author(s).Open access journalThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

On-demand generation of background-free single photons from a solid-state source

True on-demand high-repetition-rate single-photon sources are highly sought after for quantum information processing applications. However, any coherently driven two-level quantum system suffers from a finite re-excitation probability under pulsed excitation, causing undesirable multi-photon emission. Here, we present a solid-state source of on-demand single photons yielding a raw second-order coherence of g(2)(0)=(7.5±1.6)×10-5 without any background subtraction or data processing. To this date, this is the lowest value of g(2)(0) reported for any single-photon source even compared to the previously reported best background subtracted values. We achieve this result on GaAs/AlGaAs quantum dots embedded in a low-Q planar cavity by employing (i) a two-photon excitation process and (ii) a filtering and detection setup featuring two superconducting single-photon detectors with ultralow dark-count rates of (0.0056±0.0007) s-1 and (0.017±0.001) s-1, respectively. Re-excitation processes are dramatically suppressed by (i), while (ii) removes false coincidences resulting in a negligibly low noise floor.QN/Zwiller La

Deterministic Integration of Single Photon Sources in Silicon Based Photonic Circuits

A major step toward fully integrated quantum optics is the deterministic incorporation of high quality single photon sources in on-chip optical circuits. We show a novel hybrid approach in which preselected III-V single quantum dots in nanowires are transferred and integrated in silicon based photonic circuits. The quantum emitters maintain their high optical quality after integration as verified by measuring a low multiphoton probability of 0.07 ± 0.07 and emission line width as narrow as 3.45 ± 0.48 GHz. Our approach allows for optimum alignment of the quantum dot light emission to the fundamental waveguide mode resulting in very high coupling efficiencies. We estimate a coupling efficiency of 24.3 ± 1.7% from the studied single-photon source to the photonic channel and further show by finite-difference time-domain simulations that for an optimized choice of material and design the efficiency can exceed 90%.QN/Zwiller LabQN/Mol. Electronics & Device

Crystal Phase Quantum Well Emission with Digital Control

One of the major challenges in the growth of quantum well and quantum dot heterostructures is the realization of atomically sharp interfaces. Nanowires provide a new opportunity to engineer the band structure as they facilitate the controlled switching of the crystal structure between the zinc-blende (ZB) and wurtzite (WZ) phases. Such a crystal phase switching results in the formation of crystal phase quantum wells (CPQWs) and quantum dots (CPQDs). For GaP CPQWs, the inherent electric fields due to the discontinuity of the spontaneous polarization at the WZ/ZB junctions lead to the confinement of both types of charge carriers at the opposite interfaces of the WZ/ZB/WZ structure. This confinement leads to a novel type of transition across a ZB flat plate barrier. Here, we show digital tuning of the visible emission of WZ/ZB/WZ CPQWs in a GaP nanowire by changing the thickness of the ZB barrier. The energy spacing between the sharp emission lines is uniform and is defined by the addition of single ZB monolayers. The controlled growth of identical quantum wells with atomically flat interfaces at predefined positions featuring digitally tunable discrete emission energies may provide a new route to further advance entangled photons in solid state quantum systems.QN/Quantum NanoscienceQN/Quantum TransportQN/Bakkers La