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Indistinguishable single photons from spatially-ordered array of highly efficient and pure mesa-top single quantum dots: A step closer to on-chip quantum optical circuits

Jiefei Zhang, Swarnabha Chattaraj, Qi Huang, Lucas Jordao, Siyuan Lu, Anupam Madhukar

Published Aug 3, 2021• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

The first two decades of the 21st century have witnessed remarkable progress in harnessing the power of quantum mechanics, on-chip, enabled by the development in epitaxial semiconductor nanoscience with proof-of-principle demonstrations -- many tour-de force -- of quantum functionalities such as entanglement and teleportation amongst photon and matter qubits ---quintessential quantum phenomena that underpin the development of quantum technologies. A basic hindrance to such development however has been the absence of a platform of on-demand single photon sources (SPSs) with adequate spectral characteristics and arranged in spatially regular arrays necessary for their incorporation in surrounding light manipulation units to enable quantum networks. Here we report on the first spatially-ordered, scalable platform of deterministic, bright, spectrally highly uniform, pure, and indistinguishable SPSs. At 19.5K, and without Purcell enhancement, these SPSs exhibit emission purity ~99.2% and two-photon interference (TPI) indistinguishability ~57%. Oscillation behavior of the photon emission indicates that the photons originate from a coherent superposition of two excitonic states, revealing effectively a three-level electronic structure which can be exploited as potential two-frequency qubit generating energy entangled photons for teleportation. Time-dependent two photon interference (Hong-Ou Mandel interferometry) coincidence counts g(2)({\tau}) near {\tau}=0 show effectively zero count which, analyzed using the three-level model, reveals a highly encouraging dephasing time of ~0.58ns at ~20K. Such SPS arrays in a planarized structure open the pathway to creating interconnected quantum networks for application in communication, sensing, computing and more.

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The first two decades of the 21st century have witnessed remarkable progress in harnessing the power of quantum mechanics, on-chip, enabled by the development in epitaxial semiconductor nanoscience with proof-of-principle demonstrations -- many tour-de force -- of quantum functionalities such as entanglement and teleportation amongst photon and matter qubits ---quintessential quantum phenomena that underpin the development of quantum technologies. A basic hindrance to such development however has been the absence of a platform of on-demand single photon sources (SPSs) with adequate spectral characteristics and arranged in spatially regular arrays necessary for their incorporation in surrounding light manipulation units to enable quantum networks. Here we report on the first spatially-ordered, scalable platform of deterministic, bright, spectrally highly uniform, pure, and indistinguishable SPSs. At 19.5K, and without Purcell enhancement, these SPSs exhibit emission purity ~99.2% and two-photon interference (TPI) indistinguishability ~57%. Oscillation behavior of the photon emission indicates that the photons originate from a coherent superposition of two excitonic states, revealing effectively a three-level electronic structure which can be exploited as potential two-frequency qubit generating energy entangled photons for teleportation. Time-dependent two photon interference (Hong-Ou Mandel interferometry) coincidence counts g(2)({\tau}) near {\tau}=0 show effectively zero count which, analyzed using the three-level model, reveals a highly encouraging dephasing time of ~0.58ns at ~20K. Such SPS arrays in a planarized structure open the pathway to creating interconnected quantum networks for application in communication, sensing, computing and more.
Realization of quantum optical circuits is at the heart of quantum photonic information processing. A long-standing obstacle, however, has been the absence of a suitable platform of single photon sources (SPSs). Such SPSs need to be in spatially ordered arrays and produce, on-demand, highly pure, and indistinguishable single photons with sufficiently uniform emission characteristics to enable controlled interference between photons from distinct sources underpinning functional quantum optical networks. We report on such a platform of SPSs based on a unique class of epitaxial quantum dots dubbed mesa-top single quantum dot. Under resonant excitation, the spatially ordered SPSs (without Purcell enhancement) show single photon purity of >99% [ g (2) (0) ~ 0.015], high two-photon Hong-Ou-Mandel interference visibilities of 0.82 ± 0.03 (at 11.5 kelvin, without cavity), and spectral nonuniformity of <3 nanometers, within established locally tunable technology. Our platform of SPSs paves the path to creating on-chip scalable quantum photonic networks for communication, computation, simulation, sensing and imaging.
At scale, fault tolerant on-chip photonic quantum information processing (P-QIP) has been hindered by the lack of (1) on-demand generation of millions of indistinguishable single photons as qubits from (2) quantum emitters in designed spatially ordered arrays. The demonstrated unique shape- and size-controlled mesa-top single quantum dots (MTSQDs) positioned with nm accuracy in designed arrays and exhibiting <2 nanometer spectral nonuniformity offer a promising solution. Here we report CNOT gates with ~90% fidelity using photons from individual MTSQDs at 4 K withou t Purcell enhancement that enable generating Bell states with fidelity of 0.825 ± 0.010, both underpinned by a two-photon interference (TPI) visibility 0.945 ± 0.005 and single photon purity > 99.5%. Temperature and power dependent studies reveal these remarkable figures-of-merit to originate in single photon superradiance and weak electron-phonon coupling unique to large volume MTSQDs giving large oscillator strength ( ~ 30) thus robustness against temperature. These results show a path to utility scale P-QIP platforms utilizing MTSQD arrays.
Generating identical photons from remote emitter-based bright single-photon sources is an important step for scaling up optical quantum technologies. Here, we study the Hong-Ou-Mandel interference of photons emitted from remote sources based on semiconductor quantum dots (QDs). We make use of a deterministic fabrication technique to position the QDs in a spectrally resonant micropillar cavity and fine-tune their operation wavelength electrically. In doing so, we can match four pairs of sources between five distinct sources, study them under various excitation schemes, and measure their degree of indistinguishability. We demonstrate remote indistinguishabiltity between 44 ± 1% and 69 ± 1% depending on the pair of sources and excitation conditions, record values for QDs in cavities. The relative contribution of pure dephasing and spectral diffusion is then analyzed, revealing that the remaining distinguishability is mostly due to low-frequency noise.
In the quest to realize a scalable quantum network, semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) offer distinct advantages, including high single-photon efficiency and indistinguishability, high repetition rate (tens of gigahertz with Purcell enhancement), interconnectivity with spin qubits, and a scalable on-chip platform. However, in the past two decades, the visibility of quantum interference between independent QDs rarely went beyond the classical limit of 50%, and the distances were limited from a few meters to kilometers. Here, we report quantum interference between two single photons from independent QDs separated by a 302 km optical fiber. The single photons are generated from resonantly driven single QDs deterministically coupled to microcavities. Quantum frequency conversions are used to eliminate the QD inhomogeneity and shift the emission wavelength to the telecommunication band. The observed interference visibility is 0.67 ± 0.02 (0.93 ± 0.04) without (with) temporal filtering. Feasible improvements can further extend the distance to ∼600 km. Our work represents a key step to long-distance solid-state quantum networks.
Quantum interference of indistinguishable photons is the foundation of photonic quantum technologies, yet scaling from a few to many identical quantum light sources remains a major challenge. In solid-state platforms, spatial and spectral inhomogeneity and resource-intensive architectures impede scaling. As a result, interference between remote, independent quantum emitters has been thus far limited to pairs. Here we introduce a wavefront-shaping approach that enables scalable interference from multiple indistinguishable quantum dots on the same chip. Using programmable spatial light modulators, we independently excite, collect, and route emission from spatially distinct, yet spectrally degenerate dots. Scaling from two to five indistinguishable emitters, we verify interference through cooperative-emission phenomena and Hong-Ou-Mandel two-photon interference, thereby establishing a route towards large-scale, programmable quantum photonic architectures.
Highly efficient single photon sources are important building blocks for optical quantum information processing. For practical use and long-distance quantum communication, single photons should have fiber-compatible telecom wavelengths. In addition, most quantum communication applications require high degree of indistinguishability of single photons, such that they exhibit interference on a beam splitter. However, deterministic generation of indistinguishable single photons with high brightness remains a challenging problem in particular at telecom wavelengths. We demonstrate a telecom wavelength source of indistinguishable single photons using an InAs/InP quantum dot in a nanophotonic cavity. To obtain the efficient single quantum dot emission, we employ the higher order mode in L3 photonic crystal cavity that shows a nearly Gaussian transverse mode profile and results in out-coupling efficiency exceeding 46 {\\%} and unusual bright single quantum dot emission exceeding 1.5 million counts per second at a detector. We also observe Purcell enhanced spontaneous emission rate as large as 4 and high linear polarization ratio of 0.96 for the coupled dots. Using this source, we generate high purity single photons at 1.3 ??m wavelength and demonstrate the indistinguishable nature of the emission using a two-photon interference measurement.