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arXiv:0706.2143 · New Journal of Physics

Single electron-spin memory with a semiconductor quantum dot

Robert James Young, Samuel Dewhurst, R. M. Stevenson, P. Atkinson, Anthony J. Bennett, Martin B. Ward, Ken Cooper, D. A. Ritchie, Andrew J. Shields

Published Oct 9, 2007• 42 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We show storage of the circular polarization of an optical field, transferring it to the spin-state of an individual electron confined in a single semiconductor quantum dot. The state is subsequently read out through the electronically-triggered emission of a single photon. The emitted photon shares the same polarization as the initial pulse but has a different energy, making the transfer of quantum information between different physical systems possible. With an applied magnetic field of 2 T, spin memory is preserved for at least 1000 times more than the exciton's radiative lifetime.

DOI
10.1088/1367-2630/9/10/365

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We show storage of the circular polarization of an optical field, transferring it to the spin-state of an individual electron confined in a single semiconductor quantum dot. The state is subsequently read out through the electronically-triggered emission of a single photon. The emitted photon shares the same polarization as the initial pulse but has a different energy, making the transfer of quantum information between different physical systems possible. With an applied magnetic field of 2 T, spin memory is preserved for at least 1000 times more than the exciton's radiative lifetime.
We report on a single photon and spin storage device based on a semiconductor quantum dot molecule. Optically excited single electron-hole pairs are trapped within the molecule, and their recombination rate is electrically controlled over 3 orders of magnitude. Single photons are stored up to 1 μs and read out on a subnanosecond time scale. By using resonant excitation, the circular polarization of individual photons is transferred into the spin state of electron-hole pairs with a fidelity above 80%, which does not degrade for storage times up to the 12.5 ns repetition period of the experiment.
We present an exciton-spin memory scheme using a single QDM consisting of two InAs QDs separated by a thin GaAs tunnelling barrier. Electrical control of the electron-hole spatial separation allowed the exciton lifetime to be tuned in the 1-1000 ns range. Storage and read-out operations were implemented using sub nanosecond modulation of the lifetime and photon storage up to 1μs was demonstrated. Using resonant excitation the circular polarisation of photons was transferred and stored in the exciton Zeeman states of a QDM under a magnetic field. The delayed emission was clearly co-polarised with the excitation light and a combined fidelity of 80% for the write and read operations was achieved.
New technologies based on the properties of quantum mechanics promise to revolutionise the way information is processed by outperforming what is possible using classical devices. Examples include massively parallel processing using quantum computers, verifiably secure communication using quantum cryptography, and measurement with sensitivity beyond classical limitation with quantum metrology. Realising the full potential of these technologies necessitates the ability to communicate quantum information over large distances, a key requirement for future quantum networks. However, developing practical implementations of long-distance quantum communication is challenging as it necessitates three major ingredients: light-matter interfaces, elementary quantum operations, and quantum memories. This thesis describes work that has been undertaken to address these requirements using semiconductor nanotechnology. We have first demonstrated that single InAs quantum dots embedded inside conventional diode structures constitute high-fidelity controllable interfaces between optical qubits and solid-state qubits. Indeed, the polarisation state of a photon was transferred into the spin state of an electron-hole pair and eventually restored through radiative recombination of the electron and the hole with a fidelity up to 95%. Moreover, spins were manipulated using subnanosecond modulation of a vertical electric field applied to the quantum dots. By controlling this electrical modulation, we demonstrated elementary phase-shift and spin-flip gate operations with near-unity fidelities. An electron-hole pair confi ned in a single quantum dot has a short radiative lifetime limiting therefore its use as an excitonic quantum memory. The solution we proposed was to use a quantum dot molecule to control the spatial separation of the electron and the hole and therefore prevent their recombination. Comprehensive studies of electric field eff ects upon the photoluminescence of quantum dot molecules lead to a clear understanding and a good control over their physical properties. Single photons were stored in individual quantum dot molecules up to 1μs and read out on a subnanosecond time scale. Moreover, the circular polarisation of individual photons was transferred into the spin state of electron-hole pairs with a fidelity above 90%, which does not degrade for storage times up to the 12.5 ns repetition period of the experiment. Our work on single quantum dots could be extended in the near future to allow for two-qubits quantum operations by con fining a second electron-hole pair to be electrically manipulated. Storage of a superposition of spin states in a quantum dot molecule should also be possible if the spin states are made degenerate, which is feasible using the electric fi eld dependence of the energy splitting between the spin states discussed in this thesis. We believe that combining both approaches will lead to the development of a controllable multi-qubit quantum memory for polarised light, a building block for long distance quantum communication based on semiconductor nanotechnology.
Spin is a quantum property of electrons. For spin-based quantum information technology, preparation and read-out of the electron spin state should be spin coherent. We demonstrate that the polarization coher ence of light can be transferred to the spin coherence of electrons in a semiconductor quantum nanostructure [1], and the prepared coherence of the electron spin can also be read out with light by the developed tomographic Kerr rotation method [2]. We also demonstrate that a single photon is efficiently converted (~27%) into a single electron trapped in a gate-defined quantum dot, where the g-factor of electrons is tuned to zero, and the charge state is detected with an adjacent quantum point contact without destructing the spin state [3]. We further demonstrate that the spin coherence of a single electron trapped in one of double quantum dots is electrically manipulated with a microwave applied to the gate and read out via the Pauli spin blockade phenomenon [4]. These demonstrations were carried out in a condition where the up/down spin basis states of electrons remain ed degenerated under an in-plain magnetic field. As this condition ensures the energy conservation between photons and electrons, the entire Poincare sphere representing polarization states of photons can be mapped onto the Bloch sphere representing spin polar ization states of electrons. We theoretically showed that relative spin coherence of two electrons can be also measured with the help of spin-flip tunneling of electrons between the dots [5]. Full Bell state measurement is also possible by the single -spin manipulation and Pauli spin blockade [6]. All of these functions are needed to build all semiconductor quantum repeaters and distributed quantum computers.
Semiconductor quantum dots can be utilized to capture single electron or hole spins and they have therewith promise for various applications in fields like spintronics, spin based quantum information processing and chiral photonics. We integrate quantum dots into semiconductor microcavities to enhance light-matter interaction for ultrafast optical manipulation and read-out. Single electron and single hole spins can be statistically or deterministically loaded into the quantum dots and coherently controlled. Within the about μs-coherence times of the spins about 105 complete single qubit rotations can be performed with ultrafast optical pulses. By utilizing a Λ-type energy level system of a single quantum-dot electron spin in a magnetic field and ultrafast non-linear frequency conversion, quantum-dot spin-photon entanglement is observed.
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.