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arXiv:2504.02753 · Nature Communications

Robust biexciton preparation for entangled photon-pair generation by single-shot Floquet driving

Jun-Yong Yan, Paul C. A. Hagen, Hang-Yu Ge, Fang-Yuan Li, Hans-Georg Babin, Wei E. I. Sha, Bo Wang, Zhi-hua Gan, Andreas Dirk Wieck, Arne Ludwig, Chao‐Yuan Jin, V. M. Axt, Da‐Wei Wang, Moritz Cygorek, Feng Liu

Published Sep 12, 2026• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Quantum emitters driven by resonant two-photon excitation are a leading source for deterministically generated entangled photon pairs, essential for scalable photonic quantum technologies. However, conventional excitation schemes pose various constraints, limiting their scalability and practicability. Here, we demonstrate how biexciton preparation schemes with significantly improved robustness and reduced experimental demands can be identified using a novel design principle: ultrafast single-shot Floquet driving. This is achieved by employing two strongly and symmetrically detuned pulses, whose superposition generates a stroboscopic Hamiltonian that enables direct coupling between ground and biexciton states. Moreover, a pulse delay serves as a tuning knob, introducing an effective magnetic field making biexciton preparation particularly robust. Experimentally, we achieve a biexciton occupation exceeding 96% and preserve photon-pair entanglement with a fidelity of 93.4%. Our work opens avenues for the design of quantum control protocols with superior performance across diverse quantum emitters and qubit platforms.

DOI
10.1038/s41467-026-77221-9

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Quantum emitters driven by resonant two-photon excitation are a leading source for deterministically generated entangled photon pairs, essential for scalable photonic quantum technologies. However, conventional excitation schemes pose various constraints, limiting their scalability and practicability. Here, we demonstrate how biexciton preparation schemes with significantly improved robustness and reduced experimental demands can be identified using a novel design principle: ultrafast single-shot Floquet driving. This is achieved by employing two strongly and symmetrically detuned pulses, whose superposition generates a stroboscopic Hamiltonian that enables direct coupling between ground and biexciton states. Moreover, a pulse delay serves as a tuning knob, introducing an effective magnetic field making biexciton preparation particularly robust. Experimentally, we achieve a biexciton occupation exceeding 96% and preserve photon-pair entanglement with a fidelity of 93.4%. Our work opens avenues for the design of quantum control protocols with superior performance across diverse quantum emitters and qubit platforms.
We investigate both experimentally and theoretically a simple yet more robust and flexible alternative to Rabi oscillation-type biexciton preparation protocols traditionally used for semiconductor quantum dots. The quantum dot is excited by a strong laser pulse positively detuned from the two-photon resonance yielding an on demand initialization of the biexciton state by making use of the phonon-induced thermalization of the photon dressed states. It is shown that for excitation pulses in the picosecond range, a stable and high occupation of up to ${C}_{XX}=0.95\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.02$ is reached. Notably, the generated photons show similar coherence properties as measured in the resonant two-photon scheme. This protocol is a powerful tool for the control of complex solid state systems combining radiative cascades, entanglement, and resonant cavity modes.
It is demonstrated how the exciton and the biexciton state of a quantum dot can be prepared with high fidelity on a picosecond time scale by driving the dot with a strong laser pulse that is tuned above the exciton resonance for exciton preparation and in resonance with the exciton transition for biexciton preparation. The proposed protocols make use of the phonon-induced relaxation towards photon dressed states in optically driven quantum dots and combine the simplicity of traditional Rabi oscillation schemes with the robustness of adiabatic rapid passage schemes. Our protocols allow for an on-demand, fast, and almost perfect state preparation even at strong carrier-phonon interaction where other schemes fail. In fact, the performance of the presented protocols is shown to be better the stronger the carrier-phonon interaction is.
Coherent control of quantum emitters is essential for scalable quantum photonic technologies. The recently proposed swing up of the quantum emitter population (SUPER) scheme allows efficient and coherent state preparation via off-resonant, red-detuned laser pulses, simplifying laser suppression and enhancing photon collection. We present a systematic study of SUPER excitation applied to a single GaAs quantum dot in a low- Q micropillar cavity. We first identify the optimal excitation conditions for SUPER, and then compare the key figures of merit against the well-established two-photon excitation (TPE). Despite requiring higher excitation powers, SUPER achieves near-unity population inversion of the exciton state ( ∼ 95 % ) and high single-photon purity ( g ( 2 ) = 0.03 ) comparable to that under TPE, while also exhibiting a shortened decay time ( ∼ 200 ps) reducing the time jitter in the exciton population. A polarization-resolved analysis reveals that when both excitation and collection are aligned with one of the exciton dipoles, SUPER results in highly polarized single-photon emission, exceeding the resonant TPE saturation by a factor of 1.45. Under optimized excitation conditions, we also observe biexciton preparation via a distinct SUPER resonance, constituting an experimental demonstration of biexciton preparation using SUPER. These findings are in good agreement with a proposed four-level theoretical model that incorporates the biexciton state. Furthermore, we report that, strikingly, a slight misalignment of laser polarization induces an additional SUPER resonance that selectively populates the orthogonal exciton dipole, without altering the nominal excitation polarization. This unexpected behavior reveals a new degree of freedom for coherent state preparation. Our findings establish the SUPER scheme as a versatile tool for state-selective exciton and biexciton control, with strong potential for quantum photonic applications.
In the SUPER scheme (Swing-UP of the quantum EmitteR population), excitation of a quantum emitter is achieved with two off-resonant, red-detuned laser pulses. This allows the generation of high-quality single photons without the need of complex laser stray light suppression or careful spectral filtering. In the present work, we extend this promising method to quantum emitters, specifically semiconductor quantum dots, inside a resonant optical cavity. A significant advantage of the SUPER scheme is identified in that it eliminates re-excitation of the quantum emitter by suppressing photon emission during the excitation cycle. This, in turn, leads to almost ideal single-photon purity, overcoming a major factor typically limiting the quality of photons generated with quantum emitters in high-quality cavities. We further find that for cavity-mediated biexciton emission of degenerate photon pairs, the SUPER scheme leads to near-perfect biexciton initialization with very high values of polarization entanglement of emitted photon pairs. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
For scalable applications of optical quantum information it is desirable to have a well controlled source of photons, producing single photons or entangled-pairs on-demand. The finite delay following decay of an exciton confined in a quantum dot makes them a good source of single photons, we demonstrate this, triggering the emission with a pulsed laser. Currently the most widely used techniques for generating entangled photon pairs are nonlinear optical processes, such as parametric down conversion, which produces a probabilistic number of pairs per excitation cycle. Such a source is of limited use in quantum information/processing applications where a regular stream of single entangled photon pairs is preferable. We produced such a triggered source from a semiconductor device for the first time, using the two-photon cascade from a biexciton confined in a single quantum dot. We demonstrate a fidelity of 70% for the emission from the biexciton cascade to the expected bell state. Single quantum dots could prove to be the first robust and compact triggered source of entangled photons.
Single or entangled photon states are vital for quantum communication. They can be generated on-demand by solid-state quantum emitters. Achieving high-fidelity photons depends on the excitation process. In addition to more established schemes, we present a radically different excitation scheme using two red-detuned laser pulses through the swing-up (SUPER) effect. The SUPER scheme is compared to other schemes like Rabi rotations, phonon-assisted preparation and adiabatic rapid passage. Experimental demonstrations of the different schemes are pointed out. With this, we highlight advancements in photon generation from solid-state quantum emitters.