Quantum nanophotonics: Controlling a photon with a single spin

Shuo Sun, Edo Waks A

Paola Cappellaro, J. M. MAZE, Lilian Childress +12 more

Shuo Sun, Glenn S. Solomon, Edo Waks A

We show that the presence of a single photon deterministically controls the transmission of another photon. Their strong interactions are mediated by a single quantum dot spin that is strongly coupled to a nanophotonic cavity.

Christophe Couteau

Shuo Sun, Hyochul Kim, Zhouchen Luo +2 more

Single-photon switches and transistors generate strong photon-photon interactions that are essential for quantum circuits and networks. However, the deterministic control of an optical signal with a single photon requires strong interactions with a quantum memory, which has been challenging to achieve in a solid-state platform. We demonstrate a single-photon switch and transistor enabled by a solid-state quantum memory. Our device consists of a semiconductor spin qubit strongly coupled to a nanophotonic cavity. The spin qubit enables a single 63-picosecond gate photon to switch a signal field containing up to an average of 27.7 photons before the internal state of the device resets. Our results show that semiconductor nanophotonic devices can produce strong and controlled photon-photon interactions that could enable high-bandwidth photonic quantum information processing.

R. B. Dalton, Geoff Gillett, Geoff J. Pryde +4 more