We analyse the population dynamics and the photon emission statistics of a single semiconductor quantum dot with an exciton–biexciton–triexciton multilevel driven by a pulse field, in which the quantum regression theorem and optical Bloch equations are employed. The populations of the three states are comparable under resonant excitation with the input pulse area around 1.5π. Three second-order cross-correlation functions demonstrate the correlated three-photon emissions at a given order from triexciton, biexciton and exciton states driven by single pulses, while the probability of the bunched three-photon cascaded emissions decreases to the minimum as the input pulse area increases to 2π in every period.
Excitation power-dependent micro-photoluminescence spectra and photon-correlation measurement are used to study the optical properties and photon statistics of single InAs quantum dots. Exciton and biexciton emissions, whose photoluminescence intensities have linear and quadratic excitation power dependences, respectively, are identified. Under pulsed laser excitation, the zero time delay peak of second order correlation function corresponding to exciton emission is well suppressed, which is a clear evidence of single photon emission.