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arXiv:0911.5673

Generation of "triggered single photons" from a coherently-pumped quantum dot

Pradyumna K. Pathak, Stephen Hughes

Published Nov 30, 2009• 0 citations
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Abstract

A deterministic "on demand" source of single photons is a basic building block for linear quantum computation \cite{linear}, quantum cryptography \cite{crypto}, quantum teleportation \cite{teleport}, and quantum networks \cite{network}. In all these applications, quantum interference between two single-photon pulses on a symmetric beam splitter has been exploited \cite{review}, which imposes stringent requirement for the implemented single photons to be indistinguishable in all degrees of freedom, including their frequencies, spectral widths, pulse shapes, and polarizations. To generate single photons one requires a pumping mechanism to excite a "two-level emitter" and an efficient channeling of the subsequently emitted photons. The efficiency of the source can be enhanced by coupling the emitter to the waveguide \cite{manga} or a microcavity mode \cite{cklaw}. However, hitherto the solid-state single photon sources realized by using a quantum dot coupled with a microcavity rely on incoherent pumping of excitons, which leads to problems with timing jitter \cite{kiraz}, leading to a trade off between efficiency and indistinguishability. Here we introduce a means to realize a highly efficient solid state source of indistinguishable single photons using cavity-assisted adiabatic Raman passage in a single quantum dot - cavity system. We demonstrate pulse-triggered single photons with 100% efficiency and $>90$% indistinguishability using currently available experimental parameters.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.0911.5673

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A deterministic "on demand" source of single photons is a basic building block for linear quantum computation \cite{linear}, quantum cryptography \cite{crypto}, quantum teleportation \cite{teleport}, and quantum networks \cite{network}. In all these applications, quantum interference between two single-photon pulses on a symmetric beam splitter has been exploited \cite{review}, which imposes stringent requirement for the implemented single photons to be indistinguishable in all degrees of freedom, including their frequencies, spectral widths, pulse shapes, and polarizations. To generate single photons one requires a pumping mechanism to excite a "two-level emitter" and an efficient channeling of the subsequently emitted photons. The efficiency of the source can be enhanced by coupling the emitter to the waveguide \cite{manga} or a microcavity mode \cite{cklaw}. However, hitherto the solid-state single photon sources realized by using a quantum dot coupled with a microcavity rely on incoherent pumping of excitons, which leads to problems with timing jitter \cite{kiraz}, leading to a trade off between efficiency and indistinguishability. Here we introduce a means to realize a highly efficient solid state source of indistinguishable single photons using cavity-assisted adiabatic Raman passage in a single quantum dot - cavity system. We demonstrate pulse-triggered single photons with 100% efficiency and >90>90>90% indistinguishability using currently available experimental parameters.
We present a scheme to realize a highly efficient solid state source of indistinguishable single photons using cavity-assisted stimulated adiabatic Raman passage in a single quantum dot. The Autler-Townes doublet, generated by using a resonant driving field between biexciton and exciton states is utilized to facilitate a two-photon Raman transition in the quantum dot. An optical field transient then coherently generates a single photon pulse, whose polarization is orthogonal to the polarization of the applied fields and can thus be filtered efficiently from the scattered fields. The triggered generated single photons have greater than 90% efficiency and more than 90% quantum indistinguishability using currently available experimental parameters.
We propose two schemes to realize a highly efficient solid-state source of photon pairs using four-wave mixing and stimulated Raman adiabatic passage in a single quantum dot embedded in a microcavity. A resonant continuous-wave laser applied between biexciton and exciton states and a pulsed laser applied between a ground state and exciton state are utilized to facilitate coherent pumping. We show in the case of four-wave mixing that, although the probability of generating two photons in a cavity mode is small without cavity damping, two-photon-resonant emission is enhanced by cavity damping within the strong-coupling regime. For strong continuous-wave laser, a single photon from a pulsed laser and two-photon-resonant transition through a strongly coupled cavity mode lead to a (1+2)-type Raman transition through the generated Autler-Townes doublet. We also discuss the spectrum of the generated photon pair and the photon-photon correlations in the generated photon pair.
Highly efficient single photon sources are important building blocks for optical quantum information processing. For practical use and long-distance quantum communication, single photons should have fiber-compatible telecom wavelengths. In addition, most quantum communication applications require high degree of indistinguishability of single photons, such that they exhibit interference on a beam splitter. However, deterministic generation of indistinguishable single photons with high brightness remains a challenging problem in particular at telecom wavelengths. We demonstrate a telecom wavelength source of indistinguishable single photons using an InAs/InP quantum dot in a nanophotonic cavity. To obtain the efficient single quantum dot emission, we employ the higher order mode in L3 photonic crystal cavity that shows a nearly Gaussian transverse mode profile and results in out-coupling efficiency exceeding 46 {\\%} and unusual bright single quantum dot emission exceeding 1.5 million counts per second at a detector. We also observe Purcell enhanced spontaneous emission rate as large as 4 and high linear polarization ratio of 0.96 for the coupled dots. Using this source, we generate high purity single photons at 1.3 ??m wavelength and demonstrate the indistinguishable nature of the emission using a two-photon interference measurement.
Single photons are attractive candidates of quantum bits (qubits) for quantum computation and are the best messengers in quantum networks. Future scalable, fault-tolerant photonic quantum technologies demand both stringently high levels of photon indistinguishability and generation efficiency. Here, we demonstrate deterministic and robust generation of pulsed resonance fluorescence single photons from a single semiconductor quantum dot using adiabatic rapid passage, a method robust against fluctuation of driving pulse area and dipole moments of solid-state emitters. The emitted photons are background-free, have a vanishing two-photon emission probability of 0.3% and a raw (corrected) two-photon Hong-Ou-Mandel interference visibility of 97.9% (99.5%), reaching a precision that places single photons at the threshold for fault-tolerant surface-code quantum computing. This single-photon source can be readily scaled up to multiphoton entanglement and used for quantum metrology, boson sampling, and linear optical quantum computing.
Semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) coupled with optical microcavities provide an excellent platform for generating high-performance single-photon sources. However, the current microcavity structures are difficult to solve the tradeoff between single-photon purity and indistinguishability without additional filtering, due to challenges in suppressing broad phonon sideband spectrum and two-photon emission in the practical experiments. To address these issues, we have developed a novel asymmetric microcavity that supports two nondegenerate polarized modes, both resonant with a single quantum dot. One cavity mode is broadband and is used for excitation to reduce two-photon emission intensity, while the other is narrowband and is used for collection to enhance the indistinguishability of single-photon sources. This asymmetric microcavity also has the ability to overcome at least half of the photon efficiency loss under polarization filtering. Moreover, our model has employed an excitation pulse that resonates with cavity modes eliminating spectral distortion of intracavity fields, and efficiently achieving deterministic population inversion of QDs compared to an elliptical cavity. Our scheme paves the way to develop the excellent performance single-photon sources with higher brightness, near-unity purity, and indistinguishability without any additional filtering in practical experiments.
We present a scheme to realize a deterministic solid state source of time-bin entangled photon pairs using cavity-assisted stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) in a single quantum dot. The quantum dot is embedded inside a semiconductor cavity, and the interaction of a coherent superposition of two temporally separated input pulses and the cavity mode leads to a two-photon Raman transition, which produces a time-bin entangled photon pair through the biexciton-exciton cascade. We show that the entanglement of the generated state can be measured using triple coincidence detection, and the degree of entanglement is quantified as the visibility of the interference. We also discuss the effect of pure dephasing on entanglement of the generated photon pair. Pronounced interference visibility values of greater than 1/21/\sqrt{2}1/2​ are demonstrated in triple coincidence measurement using experimentally achievable parameters, thus demonstrating that the generated photons are suitable for applications with Bell's inequality violation and quantum cryptography.