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Progress in Informatics

Single photons for quantum information systems

Y. Yamamoto, Charles Santori, Glenn S. Solomon, Jelena Vuckovic A, David A. Fattal, Edo Waks A, Eleni Diamanti

Published Mar 1, 2005• 29 citations
Publisher

Abstract

This paper reviews the current state of single-photon sources based on the semiconductor quantum dots that will play a central role in future quantum information systems.By optically pumping a system consisting of a semiconductor single quantum dot confined in a monolithic microcavity, it is possible to produce a single-photon pulse stream at the Fourier transform limit with high efficiency and a high repetition rate.This technique is not only useful for BB84 quantum cryptography using single photons, but will also find applications in other quantum information systems such as BBM92 quantum cryptography using entangled photon pairs, quantum teleportation, quantum repeaters, and linear optical quantum computers.

DOI
10.2201/niipi.2005.1.2

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This paper reviews the current state of single-photon sources based on the semiconductor quantum dots that will play a central role in future quantum information systems.By optically pumping a system consisting of a semiconductor single quantum dot confined in a monolithic microcavity, it is possible to produce a single-photon pulse stream at the Fourier transform limit with high efficiency and a high repetition rate.This technique is not only useful for BB84 quantum cryptography using single photons, but will also find applications in other quantum information systems such as BBM92 quantum cryptography using entangled photon pairs, quantum teleportation, quantum repeaters, and linear optical quantum computers.
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For the past fifteen years, single semiconductor quantum dots, often referred to as solid-state artificial atoms, have been at the forefront of various research direction lines for experimental quantum information science, in particular in the development of practical sources of quantum states of light. Here we review the research to date, on the tailoring of the emission properties from single quantum dots producing single photons, indistinguishable single photons and entangled photon pairs. Finally, the progress and future prospects for applications of single dots in quantum information processing is considered.
Major improvements have been made on semiconductor quantum dot light sources recently and now they can be seen as a serious candidate for near-future scalable photonic quantum information processing experiments. The three key parameters of these photon sources for such applications have been pushed to extreme values: almost unity single-photon purity and photon indistinguishability, and high brightness. In this paper, we review the progress achieved recently on quantum-dot-based single-photon sources. We also review some quantum information experiments where entanglement processes are achieved using semiconductor quantum dots.
An optical source that produces single-photon pulses on demand has potential applications in linear optics quantum computation, provided that stringent requirements on indistinguishability and collection efficiency of the generated photons are met. We show that these are conflicting requirements for anharmonic emitters that are incoherently pumped via reservoirs. As a model for a coherently pumped single photon source, we propose cavity-assisted spin-flip Raman transitions in a single electron charged quantum dot embedded in a microcavity. We demonstrate that using such a source, arbitrarily high collection efficiency and indistinguishability of the generated photons can be obtained simultaneously with increased cavity coupling. We analyze the role of errors that arise from distinguishability of the single-photon pulses in linear optics quantum gates by relating the gate fidelity to the strength of the two-photon interference dip in photon cross-correlation measurements. We find that performing controlled phase operations with error <1<1\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}%<1 requires nanocavities with Purcell factors ${F}_{P}\ensuremath{\geqslant}40$ in the absence of dephasing, without necessitating the strong coupling limit.
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.
Fast, high efficiency and low error single-photon sources are required for the implementation of a number of quantum information processing applications. The fastest triggered single-photon sources to date have been demonstrated using epitaxially grown semiconductor quantum dots (QDs), which can be conveniently integrated with optical microcavities. Recent advances in QD technology, including demonstrations of high temperature and telecommunications wavelength single-photon emission, have made QD single-photon sources more practical. Here we discuss the applications of single-photon sources and their various requirements, before reviewing the progress made on a QD platform in meeting these requirements.