Mesoscopic cavity quantum electrodynamics with atomic systems and quantum dots

Lilian Childress, Anders Søndberg Sørensen

Matthew T. Rakher, Stefan Strauf, N. G. Stolz +6 more

P. Senellart, Isabelle Robert-Philip

Martin Winger, Thomas Volz, Guillaume Tarel +8 more

Cavity quantum-electrodynamics experiments using an atom coupled to a single radiation-field mode have played a central role in testing foundations of quantum mechanics, thus motivating solid-state implementations using single quantum dots coupled to monolithic nano-cavities. In stark contrast to their atom based counterparts, the latter experiments revealed strong cavity emission, even when the quantum dot is far off resonance. Here we present experimental and theoretical results demonstrating that this effect arises from the mesoscopic nature of quantum dot confinement, ensuring the presence of a quasi-continuum of transitions between excited quantum dot states that are enhanced by the cavity mode. Our model fully explains photon correlation measurements demonstrating that photons emitted at the cavity frequency are essentially uncorrelated with each other even though they are generated by a single quantum dot.

Lilian Childress, Anders Søndberg Sørensen, Mikhail D. Lukin

We describe an electrodynamic mechanism for coherent, quantum-mechanical coupling between spatially separated quantum dots on a microchip. The technique is based on capacitive interactions between the electron charge and a superconducting transmission line resonator, and is closely related to atomic cavity quantum electrodynamics. We investigate several potential applications of this technique which have varying degrees of complexity. In particular, we demonstrate that this mechanism allows design and investigation of an on-chip double-dot microscopic maser. Moreover, the interaction may be extended to couple spatially separated electron-spin states while only virtually populating fast-decaying superpositions of charge states. This represents an effective, controllable long-range interaction, which may facilitate implementation of quantum information processing with electron-spin qubits and potentially allow coupling to other quantum systems such as atomic or superconducting qubits.

HERBERT WALTHER