Excitation power-dependent micro-photoluminescence spectra and photon-correlation measurement are used to study the optical properties and photon statistics of single InAs quantum dots. Exciton and biexciton emissions, whose photoluminescence intensities have linear and quadratic excitation power dependences, respectively, are identified. Under pulsed laser excitation, the zero time delay peak of second order correlation function corresponding to exciton emission is well suppressed, which is a clear evidence of single photon emission.
Excitation power-dependent micro-photoluminescence spectra and photon-correlation measurement are used to study the optical properties and photon statistics of single InAs quantum dots. Exciton and biexciton emissions, whose photoluminescence intensities have linear and quadratic excitation power dependences, respectively, are identified. Under pulsed laser excitation, the zero time delay peak of second order correlation function corresponding to exciton emission is well suppressed, which is a clear evidence of single photon emission.
The peaks of exciton and biexciton from the single quantum dot (QD) micro-photoluminescence spectra are identified by observing the intensity of those peaks in relation to increasing excitation power. In order to further verify the properties of the exciton and biexciton, we perform auto- and cross correlation measurements. Using the former, we confirm the antibunching property of the signal light emitted from the single QD. Using cross correlation measurement, we verify that the exciton and biexciton emissions originate from the same QD and they are strongly correlated with each other. Lastly, we analyze the behavior of the cross correlation function in both the cases of saturated and unsaturated excitation of the QD.
Single InAs quantum dot (QD) sample was grown by molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE). The Photoluminescences (PL) of the exciton and biexciton in a single QD were measured at 5 K. The PL intensity as a function of the laser excitation power, the fine structure splittings of the exciton and biexciton, and the corresponding linearly polarized emissions were analyzed. By means of Hanbury-Brown and Twiss (HBT) setup, the photon correlation between the PL of exciton and biexciton were measured, which is gave an evidence of the quantum cascade emissions between biexciton and exciton PL.
We report the observation of antibunched emission from single self-assembled InAs quantum dots under various conditions. We have measured the correlation function of the photon emission pertaining to single emission lines from single quantum dots under continuous and pulsed laser excitation, as well as under continuous white light excitation. The measurements were performed under different excitation intensities at liquid helium temperatures on two samples with distinct structures. At higher temperatures (30 K), an antibunching dip was still observed. We have also observed antibunching on a second emission line in the quantum dot spectrum, attributed to the biexciton, demonstrating the possibility of generating photon pairs with a single quantum dot. Polarization correlations on the biexciton and exciton line were also measured in an attempt to generate entangled photon pairs.
We report photon correlation measurements that reveal unique signatures of biexciton and charged exciton emissions in a single self-assembled InAs quantum dot. Biexciton emission exhibits both bunching and antibunching under continuous-wave excitation and only antibunching under pulsed excitation. Cross correlation between biexciton and single-exciton emissions reveals highly asymmetric features due to cascaded emission. Under our excitation conditions, no polarization correlations between the exciton and biexciton emissions were observed.
Single photon emission is one of the most striking optical properties of semiconductor quantum dots (QDs), and the corresponding photon anti-bunching effect was observed by non-resonant and resonant photoluminescence experiments in single QDs [1,2]. Up to now, all the measurements reported in the literature focus on the incoherent photoluminescence signal for achieving single photon emission. In this regime, the linewidth of the photoluminescence spectrum is limited to the so-called radiative limit. In this paper, we report on the resonant emission (RE) of the exciton in single InAs/GaAs QDs embedded in a planar microcavity [2]. We present an original type of single photon source based on the coherent laser light scattering by a single QD [3]. Besides the antibunching effect showing the nonclassical nature of the emitted light, we observe that the QD emission spectrum is determined by the spectrum of the resonant excitation laser. Figure (a,b,c) shows high-resolution measurements by Fourier transform spectroscopy of the RE where the data are fitted to the first-order correlation function g(1)(τ) of the RE of a two-level system. The inverse Fourier transform of the g(1)(τ) function allows a direct comparison of the different RE emission profiles in figure (d,e,f). By reducing the resonant excitation power, the Mollow triplet shrinks to a single narrow Lorentzian line, while the relative intensity of this narrow peak increases and tends to overwhelm the RE spectrum. This implies that single QDs can produce single photons with a coherence time that is not limited anymore by the QD electronic properties, resulting in an ultra-coherent character [3]. References [1] P. Michler et al, Science 290, 2282 (2000). [2] H. S. Nguyen et al, Phys. Rev. Lett. (accepted, in press). See arXiv 1109.4304. [3] H. S. Nguyen et al, Appl. Phys. Lett. 99, 261904 (2011).
Single photon emission is one of the most striking optical properties of semiconductor quantum dots (QDs), and the corresponding photon anti-bunching effect was observed by non-resonant and resonant photoluminescence experiments in single QDs [1,2,3,4]. Other experiments demonstrated the possibility to use single QDs for the generation of indistinguishable single photons [3]. An important general issue is to reach the so-called fundamental radiative limit. Several strategies have been followed in that sense such as the shortening of population lifetime induced by the Purcell effect [5] or the reduction of pure dephasing by resonant excitation [2,3,4]. Up to now, all the measurements reported in the literature focus on the incoherent photoluminescence signal for achieving single photon emission. In this regime, the linewidth of the photoluminescence spectrum is always limited to the radiative limit. In this paper, we report on the resonant emission (RE) of the exciton in single InAs/GaAs QDs embedded in a planar microcavity, in an orthogonal excitation-detection geometry [4]. We present an original type of single photon source based on the coherent laser light scattering by a single QD [6]. Besides the antibunching effect showing the non-classical nature of the emitted light, we observe that the QD emission spectrum is determined by the spectrum of the resonant excitation laser. We present high-resolution measurements by Fourier transform spectroscopy of the RE where the data are fitted to the first-order correlation function g(1)(τ) of the RE of a two-level system. The inverse Fourier transform of the g(1)(τ) function allows a direct comparison of the different RE emission profiles. We show that, by reducing the resonant excitation power, the so-called Mollow triplet shrinks to a single narrow Lorentzian line, while the relative intensity of this narrow peak increases and tends to overwhelm the RE spectrum. This implies that single QDs can produce single photons with a coherence time that is not limited anymore by the QD electronic properties, resulting in an ultra-coherent character [6]. In conclusion, the resulting " ultra-coherent single photon source " promises high degrees of indistinguishability of the emitted photons which is a crucial requirement for quantum information applications. [1] P. Michler et al., Science 290, 2282 (2000). [2] A. Muller et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 187402 (2007). [3] S. Ates et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 167402 (2009). [4] H. S. Nguyen et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 057401 (2012). [5] C. Santori et al., Nature 419, 594 (2002). [6] H. S. Nguyen et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 99, 261904 (2011).