This paper studies the carrier-phonon dynamics in the optical control of the spin states in a single doped semiconductor quantum dot by means of a perturbation theory describing the open system evolution under arbitrary driving and a correlation expansion technique. This paper considers the phonon-induced decoherence accompanying a single-qubit gate: an arbitrary rotation between two selected electron spin states performed via stimulated adiabatic Raman transitions and virtual excitation of a trion state. The error of the quantum gate as well as the population and coherence dynamics is calculated depending on the driving duration and detuning and study the possible reduction of the phonon decoherence.
We present an all-optical implementation of quantum computation using semiconductor quantum dots. Quantum memory is represented by the spin of an excess electron stored in each dot. Two-qubit gates are realized by switching on trion-trion interactions between different dots. State selectivity is achieved via conditional laser excitation exploiting Pauli exclusion principle. Read out is performed via a quantum-jump technique. We analyze the effect on our scheme's performance of the main imperfections present in real quantum dots: exciton decay, hole mixing, and phonon decoherence. We introduce an adiabatic gate procedure that allows one to circumvent these effects and evaluate quantitatively its fidelity.
Single spins in semiconductor quantum dots form a promising platform for solid-state quantum information processing. The spin-up and spin-down states of a single electron or hole, trapped inside a quantum dot, can represent a single qubit with a reasonably long decoherence time. The spin qubit can be optically coupled to excited (charged exciton) states that are also trapped in the quantum dot, which provides a mechanism to quickly initialize, manipulate and measure the spin state with optical pulses, and to interface between a stationary matter qubit and a 'flying' photonic qubit for quantum communication and distributed quantum information processing. The interaction of the spin qubit with light may be enhanced by placing the quantum dot inside a monolithic microcavity. An entire system, consisting of a two-dimensional array of quantum dots and a planar microcavity, may plausibly be constructed by modern semiconductor nano-fabrication technology and could offer a path toward chip-sized scalable quantum repeaters and quantum computers. This article reviews the recent experimental developments in optical control of single quantum dot spins for quantum information processing. We highlight demonstrations of a complete set of all-optical single-qubit operations on a single quantum dot spin: initialization, an arbitrary SU(2) gate, and measurement. We review the decoherence and dephasing mechanisms due to hyperfine interaction with the nuclear-spin bath, and show how the single-qubit operations can be combined to perform spin echo sequences that extend the qubit decoherence from a few nanoseconds to several microseconds, more than 5 orders of magnitude longer than the single-qubit gate time. Two-qubit coupling is discussed, both within a single chip by means of exchange coupling of nearby spins and optically induced geometric phases, as well as over longer-distances. Long-distance spin-spin entanglement can be generated if each spin can emit a photon that is entangled with the spin, and these photons are then interfered. We review recent work demonstrating entanglement between a stationary spin qubit and a flying photonic qubit. These experiments utilize the polarization- and frequency-dependent spontaneous emission from the lowest charged exciton state to single spin Zeeman sublevels.
Quantum dots are attractive due to their potential technological applications and the opportunity they provide for study of fundamental physics in the mesoscopic scale. This dissertation studies optically controlled spins in quantum dots in connection to quantum information processing. The physical realization of the quantum bit (qubit) consists of the two spin states of an extra electron confined in a quantum dot. Spin rotations are performed optically, by use of an intermediate charged exciton (trion) state. The two spin states and the trion form a
Lambda-type system. The merits of this system for quantum information processing include integrability into a solid-state device, long spin coherence time, and fast and focused optical control. In this dissertation, we study the optical decay mechanisms of the trion state in the quantum dot. Using a master-equation approach, we derive microscopically the optical decay of the three- level system and find a novel term, the so-called spontaneously generated coherence (SGC). The latter, though predicted more than a decade ago for atomic
Lambda-systems satisfying certain conditions, had not been detected yet in any system. We found that in quantum dots, these conditions can be satisfied. We present the experiment which, in collaboration with our theory, constituted the first measurement of SGC. We establish the unification of SGC, polarization entanglement, and two- pathway decay. By keeping track of the spontaneously emitted photon dynamics, we find the conditions on the couplings that determine which effect will take place. We have thus placed SGC in a more quantum informational framework, characterizing it as lack of entanglement between the emitted photon and the three-level system. We develop a theory of ultrafast optical single-qubit rotations by use of 2
pi pulses, which have the two-fold advantage of minimal trion excitation and negligible spin precession. The analytically solvable hyperbolic secant pulses of Rosen and Zener for the two-level system are investigated in the context of the three-level system. Ultrafast rotations about the quantum dot growth direction are designed, the angle of spin rotation is expressed analytically, and the fidelity is studied by simulations. Adaptive feedback loops are employed to correct for unintended dynamics
Coherent optically driven semiconductor quantum dot systems are proposed for the implementation of quantum information processing devices. Fundamental quantum computation units, the quantum bits (qubits), are realized and optically manipulated in the exciton and spin bases. In this thesis, consecutive phase-sensitive rotations of a single qubit and their importance in the measurement of the full physical density matrix have been demonstrated experimentally in the exciton system in neutral GaAs/Al0:3Ga0:7As interface fluctuation quantum dots. The experimental work done on the exciton system serves as a foundation for consequent work on the long coherence lifetime spin-based qubits in charged quantum dots. In the spin-based system in the charged GaAs/Al0:3Ga0:7As interface fluctuation quantum dots, we demonstrate the selective excitation from the two spin ground states to the charged exciton (trion) state through phase sensitive control of the spin coherence in an ensemble of three-level spin-trion Lambda systems. This controlled excitation utilized the optically coupled and decoupled states of the electron spin in the presence of coherent transient excitation of the spin ground states in singly charged quantum dots. This progress lays the ground work for achieving complete ultrafast spin rotations.
In this work, we study the resonant nonlinear optical response obtained when optical fields are used to excite charged semiconductor quantum dots (QDs). The basic physics of charged excitons (trions) created by optical excitation of charged QDs is of interest from the point of view of optically driven spin based quantum computing (QC). Stimulated Raman excitation, resonantly enhanced by the optical dipole coupling to the trion state, was used to optically generate electron spin coherence in the ground state of charged QDs. The evolution of the spin coherence was monitored through quantum beats in the phase-sensitively detected four wave mixing signal. The decay of the beats is a measure of the spin coherence time, which was found to be at least an order of magnitude greater than either the trion dipole coherence, or the Raman coherence time between excitons in a single neutral QD. A fascinating outcome of the experiment was the first observation of a contribution to the spin coherence induced by the vacuum field, which is also responsible for spontaneous emission from the trion state, known as spontaneously generated coherence (SGC). QC demands that coherent optical manipulations should be performed within the spin coherence time. We performed coherent optical control experiments, with a pair of phase-locked pump pulses, that showed the quantum nature of the coherence through interference of different quantum mechanical pathways. We showed both in experiment and theory that we can manipulate the spin coherence on the time scale of the Larmor frequency, as well as on an ultrafast femtosecond time scale, corresponding to the optical frequency of the trion state. Finally, resonant optical excitation of both the bright and nominally forbidden transitions from a single electron spin in a QD to the trion state were demonstrated. This allows for direct optical access to all the transitions required for optically driven QC with QD electron spins. We used frequency-domain nonlinear spectroscopy measurements on single QD trions to obtain the trion dipole decoherence and decay rates. Further, we demonstrated that the single electron spin coherence could be generated and detected optically, and found that the spin coherence time was significantly greater than in ensemble measurements at the same magnetic field.