2,751 research outputs found
Controlling the polarisation correlation of photon pairs from a charge-tuneable quantum dot
Correlation between the rectilinear polarisations of the photons emitted from
the biexciton decay in a single quantum dot is investigated in a device which
allows the charge-state of the dot to be controlled. Optimising emission from
the neutral exciton states maximises the operating efficiency of the biexciton
decay. This is important for single dot applications such as a triggered source
of entangled photons. As the bias on the device is reduced correlation between
the two photons is found to fall dramatically as emission from the negatively
charged exciton becomes significant. Lifetime measurements demonstrate that
electronic spin-scattering is the likely cause.Comment: 3 figure
Test structures to characterise a novel circuit fabrication technique that uses offset lithography
This paper reports on the use of microelectronic test structures to characterise a novel fabrication technique for thin-film electronic circuit boards. In this technology, circuit tracks are formed on paper-like substrates by depositing films of a metal-loaded ink via a standard lithographic printing process. Sheet resistance and line width are electrically evaluated and these quantities are compared with optical and surface profiling measurements
Inversion of exciton level splitting in quantum dots
The demonstration of degeneracy of exciton spin states is an important step toward the production of entangled photon pairs from the biexciton cascade. We measure the fine structure of exciton and biexciton states for a large number of single InAs quantum dots in a GaAs matrix; the energetic splitting of the horizontally and vertically polarized components of the exciton doublet is shown to decrease as the exciton confinement decreases, crucially passing through zero and changing sign. Thermal annealing is shown to reduce the exciton confinement, thereby increasing the number of dots with splitting close to zero
Multi-dimensional photonic states from a quantum dot
Quantum states superposed across multiple particles or degrees of freedom offer an advantage in the development of quantum technologies. Creating these states deterministically and with high efficiency is an ongoing challenge. A promising approach is the repeated excitation of multi-level quantum emitters, which have been shown to naturally generate light with quantum statistics. Here we describe how to create one class of higher dimensional quantum state, a so called W-state, which is superposed across multiple time bins. We do this by repeated Raman scattering of photons from a charged quantum dot in a pillar microcavity. We show this method can be scaled to larger dimensions with no reduction in coherence or single-photon character. We explain how to extend this work to enable the deterministic creation of arbitrary time-bin encoded qudits
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Exploiting the potential energy landscape to sample free energy
We review a number of recently developed strategies for enhanced sampling of complex systems based on knowledge of the potential energy landscape. We describe four approaches, replica exchange, Kirkwood sampling, superposition-enhanced nested sampling, and basin sampling, and show how each of them can exploit information for low-lying potential energy minima obtained using basin-hopping global optimization. Characterizing these minima is generally much faster than equilibrium thermodynamic sampling, because large steps in configuration space between local minima can be used without concern for maintaining detailed balance.The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the EPSRC and the ERC. S.M acknowledges
financial support from the Gates Cambridge Scholarship.This is the accepted manuscript. The final published version is available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wcms.1217/abstract
Radiocarbon dating and the Naqada relative chronology
The Naqada relative chronology provides the main cultural framework for the Predynastic period of ancient Egypt. It was devised in the late nineteenth century by Flinders Petrie to improve understanding of the prehistoric origins of the Egyptian state. Petrie's approach became widely known and formed the basis for the development of seriation. In this study, we test the reliability of the Naqada relative chronology as a dating tool against all the relevant radiocarbon information. The results show that the main blocks of the relative sequence do form a true chronology, but also indicate that the system is much less reliable at the level of individual phases. We discuss the nature of the discrepancies and the broader influence of the relative chronology on current understanding of Early Egypt
Electric-field-induced coherent coupling of the exciton states in a single quantum dot
The signature of coherent coupling between two quantum states is an
anticrossing in their energies as one is swept through the other. In single
semiconductor quantum dots containing an electron-hole pair the eigenstates
form a two-level system that can be used to demonstrate quantum effects in the
solid state, but in all previous work these states were independent. Here we
describe a technique to control the energetic splitting of these states using a
vertical electric field, facilitating the observation of coherent coupling
between them. Near the minimum splitting the eigenstates rotate in the plane of
the sample, being orientated at 45{\deg} when the splitting is smallest. Using
this system we show direct control over the exciton states in one quantum dot,
leading to the generation of entangled photon pairs
Controllable Photonic Time-Bin Qubits from a Quantum Dot
Photonic time bin qubits are well suited to transmission via optical fibres
and waveguide circuits. The states take the form , with and referring to
the early and late time bin respectively. By controlling the phase of a laser
driving a spin-flip Raman transition in a single-hole-charged InAs quantum dot
we demonstrate complete control over the phase, . We show that this
photon generation process can be performed deterministically, with only a
moderate loss in coherence. Finally, we encode different qubits in different
energies of the Raman scattered light, demonstrating wavelength division
multiplexing at the single photon level
Expanding the application space for piezoelectric materials
The long history of innovation in the field of piezoelectric devices has, over the last 65 years, been predominantly rooted in a single material, the Pb(Zr, Ti)O3 ceramic, known as lead zirconate titanate (PZT). Despite enormous resources being dedicated in the last 20 years to identifying lead-free alternatives to PZT and developing a thriving, but limited, market in PbTiO3-relaxor single crystals, most device developments are still PZT based. However, more recently, solid solutions based on BiFeO3 have opened up new applications for active piezoelectric devices at high temperatures (to 600 ○C) and under high stress (exceeding 250 MPa), with applications in industrial ultrasound, aerospace, automotive, and micro-actuators. This perspective article examines how new materials are expanding the application space for piezoelectric materials
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