Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE
Entangled exciton states in quantum dot molecules
M. Bayer, G. Ortner, A. V. Larionov, A. Kress, A. Forchel, Paweł Hawrylak, Karin Hinzer, Marek Korkusiński, Simon Fafard, Z. R. Wasilewski, T. L. Reinecke, Yu. B. Lyanda-Geller
Currently there is strong interest in realizing implementations of quantum computation and quantum cryptography in a solid state environment. One of the systems that are actively studied are semiconductor quantum dots (QDs). Due to their discrete energy level structure, they are often called artificial atoms, and they attract immediately interest of quantum information science since they allow to mimic the design developed for atomic physics systems such as ions in traps or atoms in cavities. However, despite of the similarities, one has to keep in main that any elementary excitation in a QD has a generic many-body character. An essential building block of a quantum processor is a quantum gate which entangles the states of two quantum bits. Recently it has been proposed that a pair of vertically aligned QDs could be used as an optically driven quantum gate: The quantum bits are individual carriers either on dot zero or dot one. The different dot indices play the same role as a "spin," therefore we term them "isospin." Quantum mechanical tunneling between the dots rotates the "isospin" and leads to superposition of two quantum dot states. The quantum gate is built when two different particles, an electron and a hole, are created optically. The two particles form entangled isospin states. The entanglement can be controlled by application of an electric field along the heterostructure growth direction. Here we present spectroscopic studies on single quantum dot molecules (QDMs) with different vertical separation between the dots that support the feasibility of this proposal. The comparison of the evolution of the excitonic recombination spectrum with the results of calculations allows us to demonstrate coherent tunneling of electrons and holes across the separating barrier and the formation of entangled exciton states. For a given barrier width, we find only small variations of the tunneling induced splitting between the entangled states demonstrating a good homogeneity within the obtained QDM ensembles.
Currently there is strong interest in realizing implementations of quantum computation and quantum cryptography in a solid state environment. One of the systems that are actively studied are semiconductor quantum dots (QDs). Due to their discrete energy level structure, they are often called artificial atoms, and they attract immediately interest of quantum information science since they allow to mimic the design developed for atomic physics systems such as ions in traps or atoms in cavities. However, despite of the similarities, one has to keep in main that any elementary excitation in a QD has a generic many-body character. An essential building block of a quantum processor is a quantum gate which entangles the states of two quantum bits. Recently it has been proposed that a pair of vertically aligned QDs could be used as an optically driven quantum gate: The quantum bits are individual carriers either on dot zero or dot one. The different dot indices play the same role as a "spin," therefore we term them "isospin." Quantum mechanical tunneling between the dots rotates the "isospin" and leads to superposition of two quantum dot states. The quantum gate is built when two different particles, an electron and a hole, are created optically. The two particles form entangled isospin states. The entanglement can be controlled by application of an electric field along the heterostructure growth direction. Here we present spectroscopic studies on single quantum dot molecules (QDMs) with different vertical separation between the dots that support the feasibility of this proposal. The comparison of the evolution of the excitonic recombination spectrum with the results of calculations allows us to demonstrate coherent tunneling of electrons and holes across the separating barrier and the formation of entangled exciton states. For a given barrier width, we find only small variations of the tunneling induced splitting between the entangled states demonstrating a good homogeneity within the obtained QDM ensembles.
Establishing the hybrid entanglement among a growing amount of matter and photonic quantum bits is necessary for scalable quantum computation and long-distance quantum communication. Here we demonstrate that charged excitonic complexes forming in strongly correlated quantum dot molecules are able to generate tripartite hybrid entanglement under proper carrier quantization. The mixed orbitals of the molecule construct multi-level ground states with sub-meV hole tunneling energy and relatively large electron hybridization energy. We show that appropriate size and interdot spacing keeps the electron particle weakly localized, opening extra recombination channels by correlating ground-state excitons. This allows for creation of higher order entangled states. Nontrivial hole tunneling energy, renormalized by multi-particle interactions, facilitates the realization of the energy coincidence among only certain components of the molecule optical spectrum. This translates to the emergence of favorable spectral components in a multi-body excitonic complex which sustain principal oscillator strengths throughout the electric field-induced hole tunneling process. We particularly analyze whether the level broadening of favorable spin configurations could be manipulated to eliminate the distinguishability of photons.
New technologies based on the properties of quantum mechanics promise to revolutionise the way information is processed by outperforming what is possible using classical devices. Examples include massively parallel processing using quantum computers, verifiably secure communication using quantum cryptography, and measurement with sensitivity beyond classical limitation with quantum metrology. Realising the full potential of these technologies necessitates the ability to communicate quantum information over large distances, a key requirement for future quantum networks. However, developing practical implementations of long-distance quantum communication is challenging as it necessitates three major ingredients: light-matter interfaces, elementary quantum operations, and quantum memories. This thesis describes work that has been undertaken to address these requirements using semiconductor nanotechnology. We have first demonstrated that single InAs quantum dots embedded inside conventional diode structures constitute high-fidelity controllable interfaces between optical qubits and solid-state qubits. Indeed, the polarisation state of a photon was transferred into the spin state of an electron-hole pair and eventually restored through radiative recombination of the electron and the hole with a fidelity up to 95%. Moreover, spins were manipulated using subnanosecond modulation of a vertical electric field applied to the quantum dots. By controlling this electrical modulation, we demonstrated elementary phase-shift and spin-flip gate operations with near-unity fidelities. An electron-hole pair confi ned in a single quantum dot has a short radiative lifetime limiting therefore its use as an excitonic quantum memory. The solution we proposed was to use a quantum dot molecule to control the spatial separation of the electron and the hole and therefore prevent their recombination. Comprehensive studies of electric field eff ects upon the photoluminescence of quantum dot molecules lead to a clear understanding and a good control over their physical properties. Single photons were stored in individual quantum dot molecules up to 1μs and read out on a subnanosecond time scale. Moreover, the circular polarisation of individual photons was transferred into the spin state of electron-hole pairs with a fidelity above 90%, which does not degrade for storage times up to the 12.5 ns repetition period of the experiment. Our work on single quantum dots could be extended in the near future to allow for two-qubits quantum operations by con fining a second electron-hole pair to be electrically manipulated. Storage of a superposition of spin states in a quantum dot molecule should also be possible if the spin states are made degenerate, which is feasible using the electric fi eld dependence of the energy splitting between the spin states discussed in this thesis. We believe that combining both approaches will lead to the development of a controllable multi-qubit quantum memory for polarised light, a building block for long distance quantum communication based on semiconductor nanotechnology.
Semiconductor Quantum dots are potentially an attractive source of non-classical light. They can confine bound electron-hole pairs, excitons, in all three spatial dimensions giving them discrete optical emission energies, much like the electronic states in atomic systems. The semiconductor nature of the system allows quantum dots to be integrated into complicated device structures including optical cavities [1] and electrical injection [2]. The radiative exciton emission from a semiconductor quantum dot can provide the simplest form of quantum light, a single photon source [2]. The finite re-excitation time following the radiative decay of an exciton in a quantum dot prevents the dot from emitting more than one photon if excited with a short optical or electronic pulse. In a similar fashion excitation of the biexciton state, consisting of two electrons and holes, in the quantum dot results in the emission of a pair of photons at the energy of the biexciton and exciton transitions. The biexciton state was, in fact, proposed as a possible source of polarisation-entangled photons in 2000 by Benson et al. [3] as it consists of two polarisation-correlated decay paths which could potentially be indistinguishable. The condition of indistinguishability is fundamental to the generation of entangled photons and is, in general, not true of the two decay paths from the biexciton state in a quantum dot; physical anisotropy causes the intermediate exciton states to hybridise and separate in energy providing ‘which-path’ information about the route taken through the biexciton decay. We demonstrate how the splitting between the intermediate exciton states in a single InAs quantum dot can be controlled by growth [4], rapid thermal annealing [5] and the application of an external magnetic field [6]. Each of these three techniques can be used to make the intermediate exciton states degenerate allowing the biexciton decay to produce singe pairs of entangled photons triggered by short laser pulses [7,8]. Entangled photon pair sources are essential for applications such as entanglement based quantum key distribution, and optical quantum computing. For these applications it is important that no more than one entangled photon pair is generated in a cycle, a requirement met by our quantum dot source which is not possible with traditional methods for generating entangled pairs of photons. Entanglement also enables quantum interferometry and metrology, the basis of image resolution beyond that possible with equivalent classical light. Biphoton interferometry using entangled emission from the biexciton decay reveals fringes with half the period of classical light [9], and less that that of the laser. In addition, interferometry suggests that this type of entangled light source is not limited by decoherence, we fine the biphoton is surprising robust against dephasing, in stark contrast to the devastating effect of decoherence upon single photons emitted by similar structures.
This paper discusses the potential application of elementary excitation in semiconductor quantum dots to quantum computation. We propose a scalable hardware design and all-optical implementation of logical gates that exploit the discrete nature of electron and hole states and their well-concentrated oscillator strength for ultrafast gate operations. We also propose a multiple-bit design based on the nearest neighbor dipole-dipole coupling. Rabi population oscillation of an excitonic two-level system in an isolated single In xGa1-xAs quantum dot is manifested by quantum wave function interferometry in the time domain, demonstrating a long lived coherence of zero-dimensional excitonic states and revealing the coherent population flopping under strong optical field. Phase-sensitive coherent gate operations on a single-dot exciton qubit are demonstrated.
The optically active nature of direct bandgap semiconductors makes them well suited for applications in quantum optics. Semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) are particularly promising, due to their discrete atom-like energy levels. In this thesis, transitions between these energy levels are used to investigate the effects of electric and magnetic fields on the energy structure of single QDs, with a view to developing applications in the field of quantum computing. In the work presented here a novel method of creating entangled photon pair emitters is presented, in which an electric field is used to tune the energy structure of single QDs to allow the fidelity of the emitted entangled state to be increased. In addition, a technique for the creation of energy-tunable entangled photon pairs is proposed and shown to be feasible with current technology. Furthermore, the potential of QDs to act as an interface between photonic and spin qubits is explored. Application of a time varying electric field is used to dynamically tune the QD energy levels, allowing the evolution of excitons confined within single QDs to be manipulated. Using this system a controlled phase rotation of the exciton spin state is implemented. Finally, indistinguishable single photons, emitted by the radiative decay of the exciton state, are used to generate the input state for an integrated photonic two-qubit quantum logic gate. This is the first demonstration of a two-qubit gate using on-demand single photons. It is also the first demonstration of such a gate with all components realised using semiconductor materials.