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Physical Review A

Phonon-assisted control of the single-photon spectral characteristics in a semiconductor quantum dot using a single laser pulse

Parvendra Kumar, Agnikumar G. Vedeshwar

Published Sep 6, 2017• 6 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We theoretically demonstrate the phonon-assisted control of the single-photon spectral characteristics such as central frequency and linewidth in a semiconductor quantum dot coupled to a pillar microcavity using a single laser pulse as both excitation and control. We derive the relevant optical Bloch equations from the suitable polaron master equation for taking into account the effects of phonons accurately. We show that with the appropriately chosen parameters of the exciting laser pulse (pump pulse) and cavity, the central frequency and linewidth of the single photon can be controlled simply by controlling the frequency and pulse width of the exciting laser pulse, respectively. Subsequently, we show that these are essentially the phonon-induced processes which ensure that the probability of single-photon emission does not change significantly with the variation of the frequency and pulse width of the exciting laser pulse. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the polarization of the single photon can also be controlled by adjusting the polarization of the pump pulse.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.96.033808

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We theoretically demonstrate the phonon-assisted control of the single-photon spectral characteristics such as central frequency and linewidth in a semiconductor quantum dot coupled to a pillar microcavity using a single laser pulse as both excitation and control. We derive the relevant optical Bloch equations from the suitable polaron master equation for taking into account the effects of phonons accurately. We show that with the appropriately chosen parameters of the exciting laser pulse (pump pulse) and cavity, the central frequency and linewidth of the single photon can be controlled simply by controlling the frequency and pulse width of the exciting laser pulse, respectively. Subsequently, we show that these are essentially the phonon-induced processes which ensure that the probability of single-photon emission does not change significantly with the variation of the frequency and pulse width of the exciting laser pulse. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the polarization of the single photon can also be controlled by adjusting the polarization of the pump pulse.
Semiconductor quantum-dot cavity systems are promising sources for solid-state-based on-demand generation of single photons for quantum communication. Commonly, the spectral characteristics of the emitted single photon are fixed by system properties such as electronic transition energies and spectral properties of the cavity. In the present work we study cavity-enhanced single-photon generation from the quantum-dot biexciton through a partly stimulated nondegenerate two-photon emission. We show that frequency and linewidth of the single photon can be fully controlled by the stimulating laser pulse, ultimately allowing for efficient all-optical spectral shaping of the single photon.
We study the role of electron-phonon scattering for a pulse-triggered quantum dot single-photon source which utilizes a modified version of stimulated Raman adiabatic passage and cavity coupling. This on-demand source is coherently pumped with an optical pulse in the presence of a continuous-wave laser drive, allowing for efficient generation of indistinguishable single photons with polarizations orthogonal to the applied fields. In contrast to previous studies, we explore the role of electron-phonon scattering on this semiconductor system by using a polaron master equation approach to model the biexciton-exciton cascade and cavity mode coupling. In addition to background zero-phonon-line decoherence processes, microscopic electron--acoustic-phonon coupling, which usually degrades the indistinguishability and efficiency of semiconductor photon sources, is rigorously taken into account. We study how different system parameters (including cavity and laser detunings, cavity spectral width, temperature) affect the device performance and contrast the relative influence of intrinsic phonon coupling with other dephasing mechanisms. We describe how this biexciton-exciton cascade scheme allows for true single photons to be generated with over 90% quantum indistinguishability and efficiency simultaneously using realistic experimental parameters. We also show how the double-field dressing can be probed through the cavity-emitted spectrum.
We demonstrate theoretically that the single-photon purity of photons emitted from a quantum dot exciton prepared by phonon-assisted off-resonant excitation can be significantly higher in a wide range of parameters than that obtained by resonant preparation for otherwise identical conditions. Despite the off-resonant excitation, the brightness stays on a high level. These surprising findings exploit the fact that the phonon-assisted preparation is a two-step process where phonons first lead to a relaxation between laser-dressed states while high exciton occupations are reached only with a delay to the laser pulse maximum by adiabatically undressing the dot states. Due to this delay, possible subsequent processes, in particular multiphoton excitations, appear at a time when the laser pulse is almost gone. The resulting suppression of reexcitation processes increases the single-photon purity. Due to the spectral separation of the signal photons from the laser frequencies this enables the emission of high quality single photons not disturbed by a laser background while taking advantage of the robustness of the phonon assisted scheme.
We demonstrate the generation of frequency-tunable squeezed single photons from a continuous wave laser-driven single-quantum-dot system using a rigorous theoretical formalism, the so-called polaron master equation theory for accurately incorporating the exciton–phonon coupling. We investigate the squeezing for both resonant and off-resonant excitations and show that even for an appropriate off-resonant excitation, the degree of quadrature squeezing can be equal to or even greater than the maximum value obtained for a resonant excitation due to the increased purity of the quantum dot system. We further demonstrate, without losing the degree of squeezing, the tunability of the central frequency of squeezed photons by adjusting the detuning. We show that the detrimental effects due to the exciton–phonon coupling remain negligible up to the phonon bath temperature of 20 K and become quite appreciable beyond this temperature, particularly at higher phonon cutoff frequencies.
We introduce an intuitive and semianalytical polaron master equation approach to model pulse-driven population inversion and emitted single photons from a quantum dot exciton. The master equation theory allows one to identify important phonon-induced scattering rates analytically and fully includes the role of the time-dependent pump field. As an application of the theory, we first study a quantum dot driven by a time-varying laser pulse on and off resonance, showing the population inversion caused by acoustic phonon emission in direct agreement with recent experiments of Quilter et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 137401 (2015)]. We then model quantum dots in weakly coupled cavities and show the difference in population response between exciton-driven and cavity-driven systems. Finally, we assess the nonresonant phonon-assisted loading scheme with a quantum dot resonantly coupled to a cavity as a deterministic single-photon source. We also compare and contrast the important single photon figures of merit with direct Rabi oscillation of the population using a resonant $\ensuremath{\pi}$ pulse, and show that the resonant scheme is much more efficient.
We study phonon-assisted dephasing in optically excited semiconductor quantum dots within the frameworks of the independent Boson model and optimal control. Using a realistic description for the quantum dot states and the phonon coupling, we demonstrate that such dephasing has a drastic impact on the coherent optical response. We employ optimal control theory to search for control strategies that allow to fight decoherence, and show that appropriate tailoring of laser pulses allows a complete control of the optical excitation despite the phonon dephasing.