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Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe & European Quantum Electronics Conference (CLEO/Europe-EQEC)

Electrically induced two-photon transparency in semiconductors

Alex Hayat, Amir Nevet, Meir Orenstein

Published Jun 1, 2009• 0 citations

Abstract

Two-photon emission (TPE) in semiconductors was recently observed, enabling possible realizations of efficient room temperature electrically-driven heralded single-photon sources, entanglement sources, two-photon amplifiers and lasers allowing ultra-short optical pulse generation based on the nonlinearity and the wide bandwidth of two-photon gain. Two-photon lasers (TPL) based on stimulated TPE have unique microscopic quantum properties such as squeezed state operation as well as macroscopic ones including threshold dependence on cavity photon number and bi-stability, while pushing further the modulation speed limit. Semiconductor high charge carrier concentrations, mature fabrication technology and the possibility for electrical control offer many advantages for the implementation of TPLs and two-photon amplifiers. The first step towards realizing of semiconductor two-photon amplifiers or TPLs is to achieve two-photon transparency (TPT) condition, which is reported here for the first time in semiconductors (or any solid state medium).

DOI: 10.1109/cleoe-eqec.2009.5192437

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Two-photon emission (TPE) in semiconductors was recently observed, enabling possible realizations of efficient room temperature electrically-driven heralded single-photon sources, entanglement sources, two-photon amplifiers and lasers allowing ultra-short optical pulse generation based on the nonlinearity and the wide bandwidth of two-photon gain. Two-photon lasers (TPL) based on stimulated TPE have unique microscopic quantum properties such as squeezed state operation as well as macroscopic ones including threshold dependence on cavity photon number and bi-stability, while pushing further the modulation speed limit. Semiconductor high charge carrier concentrations, mature fabrication technology and the possibility for electrical control offer many advantages for the implementation of TPLs and two-photon amplifiers. The first step towards realizing of semiconductor two-photon amplifiers or TPLs is to achieve two-photon transparency (TPT) condition, which is reported here for the first time in semiconductors (or any solid state medium).

We demonstrate experimentally two-photon gain in semiconductor structures, shown previously only in dilute atomic systems. Two-photon gain is directly observed and characterized in electrically pumped room-temperature semiconductor devices, in good agreement with theory. The semiconductor structure was designed to enhance the two-photon interaction and reduce parasitic effects. The nonlinear two-photon amplification is studied directly by examining the current dependence of the optical intensity growth, and indirectly by monitoring the reduction in one-photon emission due to two-photon transitions above transparency.

One of the main challenges for future quantum information technologies is the miniaturization and integration of high performance components in a single chip. In this context, electrically driven sources of nonclassical states of light have a clear advantage over optically driven ones. Here we demonstrate the first electrically driven semiconductor source of photon pairs working at room temperature and telecom wavelengths. The device is based on type-II intracavity spontaneous parametric down-conversion in an AlGaAs laser diode and generates pairs at 1.57 μm. Time-correlation measurements of the emitted pairs give an internal generation efficiency of 7×10(-11) pairs/injected electron. The capability of our platform to support the generation, manipulation, and detection of photons opens the way to the demonstration of massively parallel systems for complex quantum operations.

Operation at the single-photon level is beneficial for energy efficiency in optical and optoelectronic devices and opens new prospects for novel applications, ranging from quantum cryptography to quantum computations. In this regard, efficient single-photon sources operating upon electrical injection at room temperature are crucially important. Color centers in diamond are currently considered to be the best candidates capable of room temperature operation. These defects in the lattice structure have been studied intensively during the last two decades, and optically driven single-photon sources have been demonstrated. However, the possibility of operation upon electrical injection was not clear until recently mainly because diamond is a unique material at the interface between solid-state and semiconductor physics. The demonstrated photon emission rate under electrical pumping did not exceed a few tens of kcounts per second [1], which is several orders of magnitude lower than the emission rate of optically pumped centers [2] and is well below the level required for practical applications. Since the mechanism of electroluminescence of the color center in diamond was not known, it was not clear to what extent the single-photon emission rate upon electrical injection could be increased.

For scalable applications of optical quantum information it is desirable to have a well controlled source of photons, producing single photons or entangled-pairs on-demand. The finite delay following decay of an exciton confined in a quantum dot makes them a good source of single photons, we demonstrate this, triggering the emission with a pulsed laser. Currently the most widely used techniques for generating entangled photon pairs are nonlinear optical processes, such as parametric down conversion, which produces a probabilistic number of pairs per excitation cycle. Such a source is of limited use in quantum information/processing applications where a regular stream of single entangled photon pairs is preferable. We produced such a triggered source from a semiconductor device for the first time, using the two-photon cascade from a biexciton confined in a single quantum dot. We demonstrate a fidelity of 70% for the emission from the biexciton cascade to the expected bell state. Single quantum dots could prove to be the first robust and compact triggered source of entangled photons.