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Optics Express

Cavity-assisted emission of polarization-entangled photons from biexcitons in quantum dots with fine-structure splitting

Stefan Schumacher, Jens Förstner, A. Zrenner, Matthias Florian, Christopher Gies, P. Gärtner, F. Jahnke

Published Feb 17, 2012• 57 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We study the quantum properties and statistics of photons emitted by a quantum-dot biexciton inside a cavity. In the biexciton-exciton cascade, fine-structure splitting between exciton levels degrades polarization-entanglement for the emitted pair of photons. However, here we show that the polarization-entanglement can be preserved in such a system through simultaneous emission of two degenerate photons into cavity modes tuned to half the biexciton energy. Based on detailed theoretical calculations for realistic quantum-dot and cavity parameters, we quantify the degree of achievable entanglement.

DOI
10.1364/oe.20.005335

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We study the quantum properties and statistics of photons emitted by a quantum-dot biexciton inside a cavity. In the biexciton-exciton cascade, fine-structure splitting between exciton levels degrades polarization-entanglement for the emitted pair of photons. However, here we show that the polarization-entanglement can be preserved in such a system through simultaneous emission of two degenerate photons into cavity modes tuned to half the biexciton energy. Based on detailed theoretical calculations for realistic quantum-dot and cavity parameters, we quantify the degree of achievable entanglement.
Semiconductor quantum dots are promising sources for polarization-entangled photons. As an alternative to the usual cascaded biexciton-exciton emission, direct two-photon emission from the biexciton can be used. With a high-quality optical resonator tuned to half the biexciton energy, a large proportion of the photons can be steered into the two-photon emission channel. In this case the degree of polarization entanglement is inherently insensitive to the exciton fine-structure splitting. In the present work we analyze the biexciton emission with particular emphasis on the influence of coupling of the quantum-dot cavity system to its environment. Especially for a high-quality cavity, the coupling to the surrounding semiconductor material can open up additional phonon-assisted decay channels. Our analysis demonstrates that with the cavity tuned to half the biexciton energy, the potentially detrimental influence of the phonons on the polarization entanglement is strongly suppressed---high degrees of entanglement can still be achieved. We further discuss spectral properties and statistics of the emitted twin photons.
Semiconductor quantum dots are among the best sources of on-demand entangled photon pairs. The degree of entanglement, however, is generally limited by the fine structure splitting of exciton states. In this paper, we theoretically investigate the generation of polarization-entangled photon pairs under two-photon excitation and cavity-assisted two-photon emission, both in the weak and strong cavity coupling regimes. We demonstrate and clarify that cavity coupling together with an excitation pulse reduces the degree of entanglement in three different ways. First, in a strong coupling regime, the cavity introduces the unequal ac-Stark shift of horizontally and vertically polarized exciton states, which results in the effective splitting of exciton states. Second, it induces the cross-coupling between the exciton states even in the weak coupling regime, causing the creation of unfavorable two-photon states. Finally, higher excited states of the cavity modes also contribute to the reduction of entanglement. Therefore, in the setting considered here, cavity coupling, which is generally required for the efficient collection of emitted photons, degrades the entanglement both in weak and strong coupling regimes.
Cascaded emission from the biexciton state of a quantum dot results in polarization entangled photon pairs. Cavity-enhancement of the direct two-photon emission channel bypasses the dominant source of decoherence in this system - that due to fine-structure splitting of the exciton levels. Here, we investigate the remaining non-Markovian phonon-induced decoherence using the numerically exact uniTEMPO algorithm. We compute the degree of entanglement of photon pairs generated by pulsed two-photon resonant excitation and find surprisingly good agreement between the numerically exact results and those calculated using the approximate polaron master equation method, permitting an efficient exploration of trends across system parameters.
We investigate the degree of entanglement quantified by the concurrence of photon pairs that are simultaneously emitted in the biexciton-exciton cascade from a quantum dot in a cavity. Four dot-cavity configurations are compared that differ with respect to the detuning between the cavity modes and the quantum dot transitions, corresponding to different relative weights of direct two-photon and sequential single-photon processes. The dependence of the entanglement on the exciton fine-structure splitting $\ensuremath{\delta}$ is found to be significantly different for each of the four configurations. For a finite splitting and low temperatures, the highest entanglement is found when the cavity modes are in resonance with the two-photon transition between the biexciton and the ground state and, in addition, the biexciton has a finite binding energy of a few meV. However, this widely used configuration is rather strongly affected by phonons such that other dot-cavity configurations, that are commonly regarded as less suited for obtaining high degrees of entanglement, become more favorable already at temperatures on the order of 10K10\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}\mathrm{K}10K and above. If the cavity modes are kept in resonance with one of the exciton-to-ground-state transitions and the biexciton binding energy is finite, the entanglement drastically drops for positive $\ensuremath{\delta}$ with rising temperatures when TTT is below $\ensuremath{\simeq}4\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathrm{K}$, but is virtually independent of the temperature for higher TTT.
We develop a theoretical model to study the intensity–intensity correlation of polarization-entangled photons emitted in a biexciton–exciton cascade. We calculate the degree of correlation and show how polarization correlations are affected by the presence of dephasing and energy-level splitting of the excitonic states. Our theoretical calculations are in agreement with the recent observation of polarization-dependent intensity–intensity correlations from a single semiconductor quantum dot (Stevenson et al 2006 Nature 439 179). Our model can be extended to study polarization-entangled photon emission in coupled quantum dot systems.
We compute the concurrence of the polarization-entangled photon pairs generated by the biexciton cascade decay of a semiconductor quantum dot. We show how a cavity-induced increase of the photon emission rate reduces the effect of dot dephasing and excitonic fine structure on the concurrence. However, strong dot-cavity couplings, as well as low detection efficiencies, increase the detrimental effect of multiple cascades. This affects the merits of the entangled photon-pair source, beyond what is estimated by quantum tomography.