Quantum dots are attractive due to their potential technological applications and the opportunity they provide for study of fundamental physics in the mesoscopic scale. This dissertation studies optically controlled spins in quantum dots in connection to quantum information processing. The physical realization of the quantum bit (qubit) consists of the two spin states of an extra electron confined in a quantum dot. Spin rotations are performed optically, by use of an intermediate charged exciton (trion) state. The two spin states and the trion form a
Lambda-type system. The merits of this system for quantum information processing include integrability into a solid-state device, long spin coherence time, and fast and focused optical control. In this dissertation, we study the optical decay mechanisms of the trion state in the quantum dot. Using a master-equation approach, we derive microscopically the optical decay of the three- level system and find a novel term, the so-called spontaneously generated coherence (SGC). The latter, though predicted more than a decade ago for atomic
Lambda-systems satisfying certain conditions, had not been detected yet in any system. We found that in quantum dots, these conditions can be satisfied. We present the experiment which, in collaboration with our theory, constituted the first measurement of SGC. We establish the unification of SGC, polarization entanglement, and two- pathway decay. By keeping track of the spontaneously emitted photon dynamics, we find the conditions on the couplings that determine which effect will take place. We have thus placed SGC in a more quantum informational framework, characterizing it as lack of entanglement between the emitted photon and the three-level system. We develop a theory of ultrafast optical single-qubit rotations by use of 2
pi pulses, which have the two-fold advantage of minimal trion excitation and negligible spin precession. The analytically solvable hyperbolic secant pulses of Rosen and Zener for the two-level system are investigated in the context of the three-level system. Ultrafast rotations about the quantum dot growth direction are designed, the angle of spin rotation is expressed analytically, and the fidelity is studied by simulations. Adaptive feedback loops are employed to correct for unintended dynamics
A method is proposed for the optical rotation of the spin of an electron in a quantum dot using excited trion states to implement operations significantly faster than those of most existing proposals. Key ingredients are the geometric phase induced by 2pi hyperbolic secant pulses, use of coherently trapped states and use of naturally dark states. Our proposal covers a variety of quantum dots by addressing different parameter regimes. Numerical simulations with typical parameters for InAs self-assembled quantum dots, including their dissipative dynamics, give fidelities of the operations in excess of 99%.
The spin states of electrons and holes confined in InAs quantum dot molecules have recently come to fore as a promising system for the storage or manipulation of quantum information. We describe here a feasible scheme for complete quantum optical control of two electron spin qubits in two vertically-stacked singly-charged InAs quantum dots coupled by coherent electron tunneling. With an applied magnetic field transverse to the growth direction, we construct a universal set of gates that corresponds to the possible Raman transitions between the spin states. We detail the procedure to decompose a given two-qubit unitary operation, so as to realize it with a successive application of up to 8 of these gates. We give the pulse shapes for the laser pulses used to implement this universal set of gates and demonstrate the realization of the two-qubit quantum Fourier transform with fidelity of 0.881 and duration of 414 ps. Our proposal therefore offers an accessible path to universal computation in quantum dot molecules and points to the advantages of using pulse shaping incoherent manipulation of optically active quantum dots to mitigate the negative effects of unintended dynamics and spontaneous emission.
We present an original scheme to rotate at will one electron spin trapped in a quantum dot by just acting on pump-laser polarization: The quantum control is based on the virtual excitation of electron light-hole pairs with pi symmetry, as possibly done by using a single laser beam with a propagation axis slightly tilted with respect to a weak magnetic field. This allows us to fully control the effective axis of the electron spin rotation through the pump polarization. Our analysis shows that quantum dots with inverted valence states are ideal candidates for ultrafast, high-fidelity, all optical control.
We demonstrate that a matter physical two-level system, a qubit, can be fully controlled using one ultrafast step. We show that the spin state of an optically excited electron, an exciton, confined in a quantum dot, can be rotated by any desired angle, about any desired axis, during such a step. For this we use a single, resonantly tuned, picosecond long, polarized optical pulse. The polarization of the pulse defines the rotation axis, while the pulse detuning from a nondegenerate absorption resonance defines the magnitude of the rotation angle. We thereby achieve a high fidelity, universal gate operation, applicable to other spin systems, using only one short optical pulse. The operation duration equals the pulse temporal width, orders of magnitude shorter than the qubit evolution life and coherence times.