Statistical Properties of Exciton Fine Structure Splittings and Polarization Angles in Quantum Dot Ensembles

We propose an effective model to describe the statistical properties of exciton fine structure splitting (FSS) and polarization angle of quantum dot ensembles (QDEs). We derive the distributions of FSS and polarization angle for QDEs and show that their statistical features can be fully characterized using at most three independent measurable parameters. The effective model is confirmed using atomistic pseudopotential calculations as well as experimental measurements for several rather different QDEs. The model naturally addresses three fundamental questions that are frequently encountered in theories and experiments: (I) Why the probability of finding QDs with vanishing FSS is generally very small? (II) Why FSS and polarization angle differ dramatically from QD to QD? and (III) Is there any direct connection between FSS, optical polarization and the morphology of QDs? The answers to these fundamental questions yield a completely new physical picture for understanding optical properties of QDEs.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Modulation of van der Waals and classical epitaxy induced by strain at the Si step edges in GeSbTe alloys

The present work displays a route to design strain gradients at the interface between substrate and van der Waals bonded materials. The latter are expected to grow decoupled from the substrates and fully relaxed and thus, by definition, incompatible with conventional strain engineering. By the usage of passivated vicinal surfaces we are able to insert strain at step edges of layered chalcogenides, as demonstrated by the tilt of the epilayer in the growth direction with respect of the substrate orientation. The interplay between classical and van der Waals epitaxy can be modulated with an accurate choice of the substrate miscut. High quality crystalline GexSb2Te3+x with almost Ge1Sb2Te4 composition and improved degree of ordering of the vacancy layers is thus obtained by epitaxial growth of layers on 3–4° stepped Si substrates. These results highlight that it is possible to build and control strain in van der Waals systems, therefore opening up new prospects for the functionalization of epilayers by directly employing vicinal substrates

Independent tuning of excitonic emission energy and decay time in single semiconductor quantum dots

Independent tuning of emission energy and decay time of neutral excitons confined in single self-assembled In(Ga)As/GaAs quantum dots is achieved by simultaneously employing vertical electric fields and lateral biaxial strain fields. By locking the emission energy via a closed-loop feedback on the piezoelectric actuator used to control the strain in the quantum dot, we continuously decrease the decay time of an exciton from 1.4 to 0.7 ns. Both perturbations are fully electrically controlled and their combination offers a promising route to engineer the indistinguishability of photons emitted from spatially separated single photon sources. © 2017 Author(s)

Independent tuning of excitonic emission energy and decay time in single semiconductor quantum dots

Independent tuning of emission energy and decay time of neutral excitons confined in single self-assembled In(Ga)As/GaAs quantum dots is achieved by simultaneously employing vertical electric fields and lateral biaxial strain fields. By locking the emission energy via a closed-loop feedback on the piezoelectric actuator used to control the strain in the quantum dot, we continuously decrease the decay time of an exciton from 1.4 to 0.7 ns. Both perturbations are fully electrically controlled and their combination offers a promising route to engineer the indistinguishability of photons emitted from spatially separated single photon sources

Possible psi(5S), psi(4D), psi(6S) and psi(5D) signals in Lambda(c)-antiLambda(c)

It is shown that the Lambda(c+)-Lambda(c-) signal recently reported by the Belle Collaboration (ARXIV:0807.4458) contains clear signs of the psi(5S) and the psi(4D) c-cbar vector states, and also some indication for the masses and widths of the psi(6S) and psi(5D). Moreover, it is argued that the threshold behaviour of the Lambda(c+)-antiLambda(c-) cross sections suggests the presence of the hitherto undetected psi(3D) state not far below the Lambda(c+)-Lambda(c-) threshold.Comment: 11 pages plain LaTeX and 5 figures; version 2: Background contribution removed; much better result; some references added; version 3: discussion on phase space include

Metal - Insulator transition driven by vacancy ordering in GeSbTe phase change materials

Phase Change Materials (PCMs) are unique compounds employed in non-volatile random access memory thanks to the rapid and reversible transformation between the amorphous and crystalline state that display large differences in electrical and optical properties. In addition to the amorphousto-crystalline transition, experimental results on polycrystalline GeSbTe alloys (GST) films evidenced a Metal-Insulator Transition (MIT) attributed to disorder in the crystalline phase. Here we report on a fundamental advance in the fabrication of GST with out-of-plane stacking of ordered vacancy layers by means of three distinct methods: Molecular Beam Epitaxy, thermal annealing and application of femtosecond laser pulses. We assess the degree of vacancy ordering and explicitly correlate it with the MIT. We further tune the ordering in a controlled fashion attaining a large range of resistivity. Employing ordered GST might allow the realization of cells with larger programming windows

Metal - Insulator transition driven by vacancy ordering in GeSbTe phase change materials

Phase Change Materials (PCMs) are unique compounds employed in non-volatile random access memory thanks to the rapid and reversible transformation between the amorphous and crystalline state that display large differences in electrical and optical properties. In addition to the amorphous-to-crystalline transition, experimental results on polycrystalline GeSbTe alloys (GST) films evidenced a Metal-Insulator Transition (MIT) attributed to disorder in the crystalline phase. Here we report on a fundamental advance in the fabrication of GST with out-of-plane stacking of ordered vacancy layers by means of three distinct methods: Molecular Beam Epitaxy, thermal annealing and application of femtosecond laser pulses. We assess the degree of vacancy ordering and explicitly correlate it with the MIT. We further tune the ordering in a controlled fashion attaining a large range of resistivity. Employing ordered GST might allow the realization of cells with larger programming windows

Slow and fast single photons from a quantum dot interacting with the excited state hyperfine structure of the Cesium D1-line

Hybrid interfaces between distinct quantum systems play a major role in the implementation of quantum networks. Quantum states have to be stored in memories to synchronize the photon arrival times for entanglement swapping by projective measurements in quantum repeaters or for entanglement purification. Here, we analyze the distortion of a single-photon wave packet propagating through a dispersive and absorptive medium with high spectral resolution. Single photons are generated from a single In(Ga)As quantum dot with its excitonic transition precisely set relative to the Cesium D1 transition. The delay of spectral components of the single-photon wave packet with almost Fourier-limited width is investigated in detail with a 200 MHz narrow-band monolithic Fabry-Pérot resonator. Reflecting the excited state hyperfine structure of Cesium, “slow light” and “fast light” behavior is observed. As a step towards room-temperature alkali vapor memories, quantum dot photons are delayed for 5 ns by strong dispersion between the two 1.17 GHz hyperfine-split excited state transitions. Based on optical pumping on the hyperfine-split ground states, we propose a simple, all-optically controllable delay for synchronization of heralded narrow-band photons in a quantum network

No Sommerfeld resummation factor in e+e- -> ppbar ?

The Sommerfeld rescattering formula is compared to the e+e- -> ppbar BaBar data at threshold and above. While there is the expected Coulomb enhancement at threshold, two unexpected outcomes have been found: |G^p (4M_p^2)|= 1, like for a pointlike fermion, and moreover data show that the resummation factor in the Sommerfeld formula is not needed. Other e+e- -> baryon-antibaryon cross sections show a similar behavior near threshold.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure

Anomalous anticrossing of neutral exciton states in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum dots

International audienceWe study the effects of heavy hole-light hole (HH-LH) mixing on fine-structure and polarization properties of neutral excitons ( X-0) confined in single GaAs/AlGaAs quantum dots (QDs) under the application of anisotropic biaxial stress. In the large HH-LH mixing regime, these properties are substantially different from the usually observed properties in the case of small or no mixing. By varying the applied stress, the mixing in the initially strain-free QDs changes from similar to 0 to similar to 70% and an anomalous anticrossing of the X-0 bright states is observed. The latter is attributed to stress-induced rotation of the in-plane principal axis of the QD confinement potential. We show that the analysis of free-excitonic emission of bulk GaAs surrounding the QDs not only allows estimation of the stress and mixing in the QDs, but also provides the quantum-confinement-induced HH-LH splitting of the as-grown QDs