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Comptes Rendus Physique

Cavity QED effects with single quantum dots

A. Badolato, Martin Winger, Kevin J. Hennessy, Evelyn L. Hu, Ataç İmamoğlu

Published Oct 1, 2008• 8 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A single quantum dot embedded in a photonic crystal defect cavity allows for the investigation of cavity quantum electrodynamics effects in a solid-state environment. We present experiments demonstrating the quantum nature of this fundamental system in the strong coupling regime. Photon correlation measurements are used to characterize the fundamental properties of this unique system: through these experiments, we identify an unexpected, efficient sustaining mechanism that ensures strong cavity emission and is quantum correlated with the exciton resonance, even when all the quantum dot resonances are far detuned from the cavity mode.

DOI
10.1016/j.crhy.2008.10.015

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A single quantum dot embedded in a photonic crystal defect cavity allows for the investigation of cavity quantum electrodynamics effects in a solid-state environment. We present experiments demonstrating the quantum nature of this fundamental system in the strong coupling regime. Photon correlation measurements are used to characterize the fundamental properties of this unique system: through these experiments, we identify an unexpected, efficient sustaining mechanism that ensures strong cavity emission and is quantum correlated with the exciton resonance, even when all the quantum dot resonances are far detuned from the cavity mode.
Cavity quantum-electrodynamics experiments using an atom coupled to a single radiation-field mode have played a central role in testing foundations of quantum mechanics, thus motivating solid-state implementations using single quantum dots coupled to monolithic nano-cavities. In stark contrast to their atom based counterparts, the latter experiments revealed strong cavity emission, even when the quantum dot is far off resonance. Here we present experimental and theoretical results demonstrating that this effect arises from the mesoscopic nature of quantum dot confinement, ensuring the presence of a quasi-continuum of transitions between excited quantum dot states that are enhanced by the cavity mode. Our model fully explains photon correlation measurements demonstrating that photons emitted at the cavity frequency are essentially uncorrelated with each other even though they are generated by a single quantum dot.
This thesis describes the first and second-order correlation measurements that were performed on a III-V self-assembled quantum dot weakly coupled to a H1 nanophotonic crystal cavity. The system has an exceptionally large Purcell factor, which enables new regimes of light-matter coupling to be explored. In particular, the Purcell effect enhances the radiative recombination rate by an unprecedented factor, allowing measurements to take advantage of the fast lifetime and broad, transform-limited linewidth of the excitons excited in the quantum dot. The main results of this thesis are presented in three chapters, which explore, respectively, the application of the system as a single-photon source, the interactions between the quantum dot excitons and their solid-state environment, and the effect of spectral filtering on resonance fluorescence photon statistics. None of these experiments would have been possible without the very large Purcell enhancement of the radiative emission from the quantum dot. In the first set of experiments, the emission properties of the cavity-coupled quantum dot under p-pulsed resonant excitation were investigated. Hanbury Brown and Twiss second-order correlation measurements were used to measure the single-photon purity of the quantum dot emission. Hong-Ou-Mandel measurements were performed to investigate the indistinguishability of the single-photons produced. The emission from the cavity-coupled dot was then investigated under continuous wave excitation. In the second set of experiments, first-order correlation measurements were made in conjunction with spectroscopic measurements to investigate the phonon sideband properties of the quantum dot, both under resonant and slightly detuned excitation. In the final set of measurements, spectral filtering was used to alter the photon statistics observed when measuring the resonance fluorescence from the cavity-coupled quantum dot. Here, the effect of filtering in both the weak and strong driving regimes was investigated by filtering both above and below the linewidth of the quantum dot.
A single atom in a cavity is the model system of cavity quantum electrodynamics (CQED). The strong coupling regime between the atom and cavity-confined photon corresponds to the reversible exchange of energy between the two modes, and underpins a wide range of CQED phenomena with applications in quantum information science, including for example as quantum logic gates and as sources of entangled states. An important advance was achieved recently when strong coupling between excitons and cavity photons was reported for the first time for localized quantum dots (QDs) in micron-size solid state cavities. This has significance in terms of scalability and integration with other optical devices, and could lead to the emergence of "quantum optics on a chip" technology. However the results presented so far for quantum dots are in the linear regime, corresponding to coupling to the vacuum field (vacuum Rabi splitting); they are not a true QED effect and can equally well be described by classical physics as the coupling between two oscillators. In this paper, we present evidence for a purely quantum phenomenon for the QD/cavity photon system, namely the increase in splitting of the levels when the mean number of photons in the cavity is increased. This corresponds to non-linearities on the single-photon scale: the presence of a single excitation in the cavity changes the level structure, affecting the emission energies for a second photon. Such results are a first step in demonstrating the promise of quantum dots for CQED applications.
We present detuning-dependent spectral and decay-rate measurements to study the difference between the spectral and dynamical properties of single quantum dots embedded in micropillar and photonic crystal cavities. For the micropillar cavity, the dynamics is well described by the dissipative Jaynes–Cummings model, whereas systematic deviations are observed for the emission spectra. The discrepancy for the spectra is attributed to the coupling of other exciton lines to the cavity and interference of different propagation paths toward the detector of the fields emitted by the quantum dot. In contrast, quantitative information about the system can readily be extracted from the dynamical measurements. In the case of photonic crystal cavities, we observe an anti-crossing in the spectra when detuning a single quantum dot through resonance, which is the spectral signature of a strong coupling. However, time-resolved measurements reveal that the actual coupling strength is significantly smaller than anticipated from the spectral measurements and that the quantum dot is rather weakly coupled to the cavity. We suggest that the observed Rabi splitting is due to cavity feeding by other quantum dots and/or multi-exciton complexes giving rise to collective emission effects.