All-Optical Depletion of Dark Excitons from a Semiconductor Quantum Dot

Semiconductor quantum dots are considered to be the leading venue for fabricating on-demand sources of single photons. However, the generation of long-lived dark excitons imposes significant limits on the efficiency of these sources. We demonstrate a technique that optically pumps the dark exciton population and converts it to a bright exciton population, using intermediate excited biexciton states. We show experimentally that our method considerably reduces the DE population while doubling the triggered bright exciton emission, approaching thereby near-unit fidelity of quantum dot depletion.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Lexicographic choice functions without archimedeanicity

We investigate the connection between choice functions and lexicographic probabilities, by means of the convexity axiom considered by Seidenfeld, Schervisch and Kadane (2010) but without imposing any Archimedean condition. We show that lexicographic probabilities are related to a particular type of sets of desirable gambles, and investigate the properties of the coherent choice function this induces via maximality. Finally, we show that the convexity axiom is necessary but not sufficient for a coherent choice function to be the infimum of a class of lexicographic ones

Development of high critical current density in multifilamentary round-wire Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x by strong overdoping

Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x is the only cuprate superconductor that can be made into a round-wire conductor form with a high enough critical current density Jc for applications. Here we show that the Jc(5 T,4.2 K) of such Ag-sheathed filamentary wires can be doubled to more than 1.4x10^5 A/cm^2 by low temperature oxygenation. Careful analysis shows that the improved performance is associated with a 12 K reduction in transition temperature Tc to 80 K and a significant enhancement in intergranular connectivity. In spite of the macroscopically untextured nature of the wire, overdoping is highly effective in producing high Jc values.Comment: 4 figure

Hall effect in quasi one-dimensional organic conductors

We study the Hall effect in a system of weakly coupled Luttinger Liquid chains, using a Memory function approach to compute the Hall constant in the presence of umklapp scattering along the chains. In this approximation, the Hall constant decomposes into two terms: a high-frequency term and a Memory function term. For the case of zero umklapp scattering, where the Memory function vanishes, the Hall constant is simply the band value, in agreement with former results in a similar model with no dissipation along the chains. With umklapp scattering along the chains, we find a power-law temperature dependance of the Hall constant. We discuss the applications to quasi 1D organic conductors at high temperatures.Comment: Proceedings of the ISCOM conference "Sixth International Symposium on Crystalline Organic Metals, Superconductors, and Ferromagnets", Key West, Florida, USA (Sept. 2005), to be plublished in the Journal of Low Temperature Physic

Complete control of a matter qubit using a single picosecond laser pulse

We demonstrate for the first time that a matter physical two level system, a qubit, can be fully controlled using one ultrafast step. We show that the spin state of an optically excited electron, an exciton, confined in a quantum dot, can be rotated by any desired angle, about any desired axis, during such a step. For this we use a single, resonantly tuned, picosecond long, polarized optical pulse. The polarization of the pulse defines the rotation axis, while the pulse detuning from a non-degenerate absorption resonance, defines the magnitude of the rotation angle. We thereby achieve a high fidelity, universal gate operation, applicable to other spin systems, using only one short optical pulse. The operation duration equals the pulse temporal width, orders of magnitude shorter than the qubit evolution life and coherence times.Comment: main text: 4 pages, 3 figures Supplemental material: 3 pages, 1 figur

Coherent tunneling by adiabatic passage in an optical waveguide system

We report on the first experimental demonstration of light transfer in an engineered triple-well optical waveguide structure which provides a classic analogue of Coherent Tunnelling by Adiabatic Passage (CTAP) recently proposed for coherent transport in space of neutral atoms or electrons among tunneling-coupled optical traps or quantum wells [A.D. Greentree et al., Phys. Rev. B 70, 235317 (2004); K. Eckert et al., Phys. Rev. A 70, 023606 (2004)]. The direct visualization of CTAP wavepacket dynamics enabled by our simple optical system clearly shows that in the counterintuitive passage scheme light waves tunnel between the two outer wells without appreciable excitation of the middle well.Comment: submitted for publicatio

Fluids with quenched disorder: Scaling of the free energy barrier near critical points

In the context of Monte Carlo simulations, the analysis of the probability distribution $P_L(m)$ of the order parameter $m$, as obtained in simulation boxes of finite linear extension $L$, allows for an easy estimation of the location of the critical point and the critical exponents. For Ising-like systems without quenched disorder, $P_L(m)$ becomes scale invariant at the critical point, where it assumes a characteristic bimodal shape featuring two overlapping peaks. In particular, the ratio between the value of $P_L(m)$ at the peaks ($P_{L, max}$) and the value at the minimum in-between ($P_{L, min}$) becomes $L$-independent at criticality. However, for Ising-like systems with quenched random fields, we argue that instead $\Delta F_L := \ln (P_{L, max} / P_{L, min}) \propto L^\theta$ should be observed, where $\theta>0$ is the "violation of hyperscaling" exponent. Since $\theta$ is substantially non-zero, the scaling of $\Delta F_L$ with system size should be easily detectable in simulations. For two fluid models with quenched disorder, $\Delta F_L$ versus $L$ was measured, and the expected scaling was confirmed. This provides further evidence that fluids with quenched disorder belong to the universality class of the random-field Ising model.Comment: sent to J. Phys. Cond. Mat