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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

Single-photon turnstile device based on coulomb blockade of electron and hole tunneling in p-i-n heterojunctions

Ataç İmamoğlu, Y. Yamamoto

Published Jun 30, 1994• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We describe a single-photon turnstile device that is based on a double-barrier mesoscopic p-i-n heterojunction driven by an alternating voltage source. In such a semiconductor device, Coulomb blockade and quantum confinement effects together can suppress the quantum fluctuations usually associated with electron and hole injection processes. It is therefore possible to generate heralded single-photon states without the need for high-impedance current source. The present scheme promises high- precision photon-flux state and current standards, as the repetition rate of the single-photon states and the magnitude of the junction current are determined by the frequency of the alternating voltage source.

DOI
10.1117/12.178522

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We describe a single-photon turnstile device that is based on a double-barrier mesoscopic p-i-n heterojunction driven by an alternating voltage source. In such a semiconductor device, Coulomb blockade and quantum confinement effects together can suppress the quantum fluctuations usually associated with electron and hole injection processes. It is therefore possible to generate heralded single-photon states without the need for high-impedance current source. The present scheme promises high- precision photon-flux state and current standards, as the repetition rate of the single-photon states and the magnitude of the junction current are determined by the frequency of the alternating voltage source.
We show that if a double-barrier mesoscopic p-i-n heterojunction is driven by an alternating voltage source, then Coulomb blockade and quantum confinement effects together can suppress the quantum fluctuations usually associated with electron and hole injection processes in semiconductors. It is therefore possible to generate heralded single-photon states without the need for a high-impedance current source. Since the frequency of the alternating voltage source determines the repetition rate of the single-photon states and the magnitude of the junction current, the present scheme promises high precision photon-flux and current standards.
We show that the Coulomb blockade of resonant tunneling in semiconductor heterojunctions creates correlations between single-charge tunneling and single-photon emission events. When driven by a constant-current source, a mesoscopic p-i-i-i-n junction generates a regulated single-photon stream by single-electron-to-single-photon conversion. Under constant-voltage operation, the photon stream generated by the junction is antibunched and sub-Poissonian. The single-electron charging energy of the heterostructure has to exceed the width of the resonant subband and the characteristic energy of the thermal fluctuations for these correlations to be observable.
We propose a new method of generating nonclassical optical field states. The method uses a semiconductor device, which consists of a single quantum dot as active medium embedded in a p- i- n junction and surrounded by a microcavity. Resonant tunneling of electrons and holes into the quantum dot ground states, together with the Pauli exclusion principle, produce regulated single photons or regulated pairs of photons. We propose that this device also has the unique potential to generate pairs of entangled photons at a well-defined repetition rate.
Summary form only given. A deterministic single photon source emitting triggered (heralded) photons on demand, also termed single photon turnstile device, is one of the key elements in the emerging field of quantum information science. We present a single photon source based on pulsed laser excitation of a single self-assembled InAs quantum dot (QD) embedded in a high quality (Q) factor microcavity structure. Regulation of the photon emission process of the QD exciton ground state (1X) transition is accomplished by a combination of two effects: Coulomb interactions creating an anharmonic multiexciton spectrum and a slow relaxation of highly excited QDs leading to vanishing re-excitation probability following the photon emission event at the 1X transition.
We report on the realization of a single-electron source, where current is transported through a single-level quantum dot (Q) tunnel coupled to two superconducting leads (S). When driven with an ac gate voltage, the experiment demonstrates electron turnstile operation. Compared to the more conventional superconductor-normal-metal-superconductor turnstile, our superconductor-quantum-dot-superconductor device presents a number of novel properties, including higher immunity to the unavoidable presence of nonequilibrium quasiparticles in superconducting leads. Moreover, we demonstrate its ability to deliver electrons with a very narrow energy distribution.
Photon emission by tunneling electrons can be encouraged by locating a resonator close to the tunnel junction and applying an appropriate voltage bias. However, studies of normal metals show that the resonator also affects how the charges flow, facilitating processes in which correlated tunneling of two charges produces one photon. We develop a theory to analyze this kind of behavior in Josephson junctions by deriving an effective Hamiltonian describing processes where two Cooper pairs generate a single photon. We determine the conditions under which the transport is dominated by incoherent tunneling of two Cooper pairs, while also uncovering a regime of coherent double Cooper-pair tunneling. We show that the system can also display an unusual form of photon blockade and hence could serve as a single-photon source.