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Physical Review Letters

Quantum Cascade of Photons in Semiconductor Quantum Dots

Emmanuel Moreau, Isabelle Robert-Philip, L. Manin, Veronique Thierry-Mieg, Jean‐Michel Gérard, Izo I. Abram

Published Oct 12, 2001• 330 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We have obtained pairs of correlated single photons from the emission cascade of an isolated InAs quantum dot. The cross-correlation function of the two photons in a pair exhibits the coexistence of asymmetric bunching and antibunching features, which is the signature for their sequential emission with a definite order. This observation opens the way to the use of semiconductor quantum dots as triggered sources of photon pairs with strong quantum correlations for quantum information applications.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.87.183601

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Quantum information processing demands efficient quantum light sources (QLS) capable of producing high-fidelity single photons or entangled photon pairs. Single epitaxial quantum dots (QDs) have long been proven to be efficient sources of deterministic single photons; however, their production via molecular-beam epitaxy presents scalability challenges. Conversely, colloidal semiconductor QDs offer scalable solution processing and tunable photoluminescence, but suffer from broader linewidths and unstable emissions. This leads to spectrally inseparable emission from exciton (X) and biexciton (XX) states, complicating the production of single photons and triggered photon pairs. Here, we demonstrate that colloidal semiconductor quantum shells (QSs) achieve significant spectral separation (∼75-80 meV) and long temporal stability of X and XX emissive states, enabling the observation of exciton-biexciton bunching in colloidal QDs. Our low-temperature single-particle measurements show cascaded XX-X emission of single photon pairs for over 200 s, with minimal overlap between X and XX features. The X-XX distinguishability allows for an in-depth theoretical characterization of cross-correlation strength, placing it in perspective with photon pairs of epitaxial counterparts. These findings highlight a strong potential of semiconductor quantum shells for applications in quantum information processing.