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IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics

Superconducting Light-Emitting Diodes

Sinthia Shabnam Mou, Hiroshi Irie, Yasuhiro Asano, Kouichi Akahane, Hiroyuki Kurosawa, H. Nakajima, H. Kumano, Masahide Sasaki, Ikuo Suemune

Published Aug 12, 2014• 25 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Cooper pairs form spin singlet states and are regarded as entangled electron pairs. Extracting entangled electrons has been actively studied by the use of superconductor-normal metal junctions. We have proposed to convert Cooper pairs to entangled photon pairs via interband radiative recombination of Cooper pairs penetrated into a semiconductor by the proximity effect. We fabricated a superconducting (SC) light emitting diode, where a superconductor is used for the n-type electrode. We observed light output enhancement and recombination lifetime shortening below the SC critical temperature. Our observations were very well explained with an analysis based on a time-dependent perturbation theory of the radiative recombination. Superconductivity was included via the Bogoliubov transformation. We present our measurements on the Cooper-pair-enhanced luminescence from InAs quantum dots. We demonstrate the observation of sharp edge in the luminescence spectra that reflects the SC density of states.

DOI
10.1109/jstqe.2014.2346617

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Cooper pairs form spin singlet states and are regarded as entangled electron pairs. Extracting entangled electrons has been actively studied by the use of superconductor-normal metal junctions. We have proposed to convert Cooper pairs to entangled photon pairs via interband radiative recombination of Cooper pairs penetrated into a semiconductor by the proximity effect. We fabricated a superconducting (SC) light emitting diode, where a superconductor is used for the n-type electrode. We observed light output enhancement and recombination lifetime shortening below the SC critical temperature. Our observations were very well explained with an analysis based on a time-dependent perturbation theory of the radiative recombination. Superconductivity was included via the Bogoliubov transformation. We present our measurements on the Cooper-pair-enhanced luminescence from InAs quantum dots. We demonstrate the observation of sharp edge in the luminescence spectra that reflects the SC density of states.
We studied InAs quantum dots (QDs) where electron Cooper pairs penetrate from an adjacent niobium (Nb) superconductor with the proximity effect. With time-resolved luminescence measurements at the wavelength around 1550 nm, we observed luminescence enhancement and reduction of luminescence decay time constants at temperature below the superconducting critical temperature (TC) of Nb. On the basis of these measurements, we propose a method to determine the contribution of Cooper-pair recombination in InAs QDs. We show that the luminescence enhancement measured below TC is well explained with our theory including Cooper-pair recombination.
Summary form only given. Various applications in the rapidly growing field of quantum information science require reliable and effective quantum light sources. We observed superconducting proximity in semiconductor light-emitting diodes (Fig. 1). These hybrid structures were proposed by us as an efficient approach for generation of entangled photons, based on Cooper-pair luminescence in semiconductors, which does not require isolated emitters. Semiconductor quantum wells, remove the light-heavy-hole degeneracy, allowing efficient photon entanglement generation in simple electrically-driven structures, taking advantage of the superconducting macroscopic coherence [1]. Based on the developed theory we analyzed a new effect of enhanced light amplification in electrically-driven semiconductor-superconductor structures, including Cooper-pair based two-photon gain [2]. Moreover, we proposed a compact and highly-efficient scheme for a complete Bell-state analysis using two-photon absorption in a superconducting proximity region of a semiconductor avalanche photodiode. This Cooper-pair based two-photon absorption results in a strong detection preference of a specified entangled state.
The realization of solid-state photon sources that are capable of on-demand generation of an entangled single-photon pair at a time is highly desired for quantum information processing and communication. A new method of generating an entangled single-photon pair at a time is proposed employing Cooper-pair-related radiative recombination in a quantum dot (QD). Cooper pairs are bosons and the control of their number states is difficult. Pauli's exclusion principle on quasiparticles in a discrete state of a QD regulates the number state of the generated photon pairs in this scheme. The fundamental heterostructures for constructing superconductor-based quantum-dot light-emitting diodes (SQ-LEDs) and the fundamental operation conditions of SQ-LED will be discussed. The experimental studies on Cooper-pair injection into the related semiconductor structures will be also discussed.
Superconductor-semiconductor hybrid devices are an evolving field, combining the technologically mature semiconductors with the unique properties of superconductors, utilized in quantum computing, information and communications. Radiative recombination of Cooper pairs in superconducting light-emitting diodes (SLED) results in superconductor-enhanced light emission. The theory behind this effect is based on a two-photon interaction with Cooper pairs, predicted to enable polarization-entangled photon pairs [1], two-photon amplification in waveguides [2] and Bell-state analyzers [3].
We investigate a semiconductor $p\text{\ensuremath{-}}n$ junction in contact with superconducting leads that is operated under forward bias as a light-emitting diode. The presence of superconductivity results in a significant increase of the electroluminescence in a sharp frequency window. We demonstrate that the tunneling of Cooper pairs induces an additional luminescence peak on resonance. There is a transfer of superconducting to photonic coherence that results in the emission of entangled photon pairs and squeezing of the fluctuations in the quadrature amplitudes of the emitted light. We show that the squeezing angle can be electrically manipulated by changing the relative phase of the order parameters in the superconductors. We finally derive the conditions for lasing in the system and show that the laser threshold is reduced due to superconductivity. This reveals how the macroscopic coherence of a superconductor can be used to control the properties of light.
Abstract Superconductor-semiconductor hybrid devices can bridge the gap between solid-state-based and photonics-based quantum systems, enabling new hybrid computing schemes, offering increased scalability and robustness. One example for a hybrid device is the superconducting light-emitting diode (SLED). SLEDs have been theoretically shown to emit polarization-entangled photon pairs by utilizing radiative recombination of Cooper pairs. However, the two-photon nature of the emission has not been shown experimentally before. We demonstrate two-photon emission in a GaAs/AlGaAs SLED. Measured electroluminescence spectra reveal unique two-photon superconducting features below the critical temperature (Tc), while temperature-dependent photon-pair correlation experiments (g(2)(τ,T)) demonstrate temperature-dependent time coincidences below Tc between photons emitted from the SLED. Our results pave the way for compact and efficient superconducting quantum light sources and open new directions in light-matter interaction studies.