Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

Optics Express

Antibunched entangled photon pair emission via two-photon excitation in a four-level quantum dot within an optical cavity

Zhenglu Duan, Cuicui Li, Yongkang Shao, Bixuan Fan

Published Jul 1, 2025• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Entangled photon pairs are a crucial resource in quantum information processing. However, common sources of entangled photon pairs, such as generation by spontaneous parametric down-conversion, impose a Poisson distribution on the pairs, limiting their applicability to quantum information processing. Therefore, generating entangled photon pairs exhibiting a sub-Poisson distribution (i.e., entangled photon bundle) would be crucial/an important advancement in the current research context. Recently, it has been proposed that antibunched photon pairs can be generated using pulsed excitation of quantum dots based on photon blockade. In this work we propose a scheme to generate entangled photon pairs with strong antibunching properties via continuous driving. Under two-photon resonant continuous pumping, a quantum dot is first excited to a biexciton state and then emits a pair of entangled photons into a two-mode cavity. Owing to the strong coupling between the quantum dot and optical modes of the cavity, at most one pair of left-/right-polarized photons exists at a time in the cavity. Specifically, the antibunching effect, average photon number, and entanglement of the left- or right-polarized photons can be resonantly enhanced when the coupling strengths between the exciton (biexciton) transition and cavity modes are equal. Moreover, our results show that the binding energy of the biexciton substantially affects the antibunching effect, average photon number, and entanglement of the left-/right-polarized photons. With suitable parameters, we can realize photon pairs with strong antibunching, a large average photon number, and deep entanglement. Hence, the studied quantum dot-cavity system is a promising source of antibunched entangled photon pairs.

DOI
10.1364/oe.567201

Related papers

Effects of cavity-mediated processes on the polarization entanglement of photon pairs emitted from quantum dots

Mukesh Kumar Samal, Divya Mishra, Parvendra Kumar

Semiconductor quantum dots are among the best sources of on-demand entangled photon pairs. The degree of entanglement, however, is generally limited by the fine structure splitting of exciton states. In this paper, we theoretically investigate the generation of polarization-entangled photon pairs under two-photon excitation and cavity-assisted two-photon emission, both in the weak and strong cavity coupling regimes. We demonstrate and clarify that cavity coupling together with an excitation pulse reduces the degree of entanglement in three different ways. First, in a strong coupling regime, the cavity introduces the unequal ac-Stark shift of horizontally and vertically polarized exciton states, which results in the effective splitting of exciton states. Second, it induces the cross-coupling between the exciton states even in the weak coupling regime, causing the creation of unfavorable two-photon states. Finally, higher excited states of the cavity modes also contribute to the reduction of entanglement. Therefore, in the setting considered here, cavity coupling, which is generally required for the efficient collection of emitted photons, degrades the entanglement both in weak and strong coupling regimes.

arXiv:2312.12054•Physical Review A•Jan 16, 2024•2 citations

Quantum correlations of spontaneous two-photon emission from a quantum dot

Shunfa Liu, Yangpeng Wang, Yasser Saleem +12 more

Abstract Spontaneous two-photon emission is a process in which the transition between two quantum states happens via simultaneous emissions of two identical photons. Such second-order quantum radiation is of paramount importance in astrophysics, atomic physics, and quantum technology. In particular, on-demand spontaneous two-photon emission from single quantum emitters has long been envisioned to revolutionize photonic quantum science and technology. To date, experimental realizations of two-photon emission at the single quanta level are still highly challenging yet elusive due to their low probabilities. In this work, we explore spontaneous two-photon emission from a single semiconductor quantum dot deterministically coupled to a high-quality microcavity in which the cavity resonances greatly enhance both excitation and emission processes. When the cavity is resonant to the half energy of the biexciton, the strong vacuum field in the cavity mode drives the biexciton to the ground state and simultaneously emits two photons into the cavity mode, resulting in two-photon emissions with a record brightness comparable to the competing single-photon process and sub-nanowatt power consumption. For the first time, the quantum nature associated with spontaneous two-photon emissions in the cavity quantum electrodynamics regime has been investigated via photon statistics measurements. Furthermore, spontaneous two-photon emission is exploited to build unconventional entangled quantum light sources with the unique advantage of combining the best of two worlds: near-unity entanglement fidelity for spontaneous parametric down-conversion source and on-demand photon emissions for atomic quantum emitters. Our work provides unprecedented insights into the two-photon process in the quantum regime and opens an unexplored avenue for pursuing optically reconfigurable quantum light sources with nonlinear quantum radiations.

Nature•Jul 9, 2025•31 citations

Entangled Photon Generation from a Quantum Dot in Microcavity in a Strong Coupling Regime

Hiroshi Ajiki

Theoretical study on entangled photon generation from a quantum dot (QD) embedded in microcavity is briefly reviewed within a strong coupling regime. In this system, entangled photon pairs can be generated through the cascade photon emission via dressed states in the cavity quantum electrodynamics (CQED). Excitation levels of a QD are modeled by a V-type three-level system and four-level system including a biexciton. In contrast to the entangled-photon generation until now, all four Bell states can be generated from an identical cavity system by simply selecting applied-field polarizations and frequencies as characteristic features of the CQED. The CQED effects play a crucial role in providing a high degree of entanglement: (i) spectral fi ltering can be used to extract entangled photons due to the vacuum Rabi splitting and (ii) non-entangled co-polarized photons are strongly suppressed due to the photon blockade effect.

The Review of Laser Engineering•Jan 1, 2013•0 citations

Polarization-entangled twin photons from two-photon quantum-dot emission

Dirk Heinze, A. Zrenner, Stefan Schumacher

Semiconductor quantum dots are promising sources for polarization-entangled photons. As an alternative to the usual cascaded biexciton-exciton emission, direct two-photon emission from the biexciton can be used. With a high-quality optical resonator tuned to half the biexciton energy, a large proportion of the photons can be steered into the two-photon emission channel. In this case the degree of polarization entanglement is inherently insensitive to the exciton fine-structure splitting. In the present work we analyze the biexciton emission with particular emphasis on the influence of coupling of the quantum-dot cavity system to its environment. Especially for a high-quality cavity, the coupling to the surrounding semiconductor material can open up additional phonon-assisted decay channels. Our analysis demonstrates that with the cavity tuned to half the biexciton energy, the potentially detrimental influence of the phonons on the polarization entanglement is strongly suppressed---high degrees of entanglement can still be achieved. We further discuss spectral properties and statistics of the emitted twin photons.

arXiv:1611.04328•Physical review. B./Physical review. B•Jun 9, 2017•34 citations

Highly efficient two-photon generation from a coherently pumped quantum dot embedded in a microcavity

Jitendra K. Verma, Pradyumna K. Pathak

We propose two schemes to realize a highly efficient solid-state source of photon pairs using four-wave mixing and stimulated Raman adiabatic passage in a single quantum dot embedded in a microcavity. A resonant continuous-wave laser applied between biexciton and exciton states and a pulsed laser applied between a ground state and exciton state are utilized to facilitate coherent pumping. We show in the case of four-wave mixing that, although the probability of generating two photons in a cavity mode is small without cavity damping, two-photon-resonant emission is enhanced by cavity damping within the strong-coupling regime. For strong continuous-wave laser, a single photon from a pulsed laser and two-photon-resonant transition through a strongly coupled cavity mode lead to a (1+2)-type Raman transition through the generated Autler-Townes doublet. We also discuss the spectrum of the generated photon pair and the photon-photon correlations in the generated photon pair.

arXiv:1602.01562•Physical review. B./Physical review. B•Aug 29, 2016•9 citations

Enhanced two-photon emission from a dressed biexciton

Carlos Sánchez Muñoz, Fabrice P. Laussy, C. Tejedor +1 more

Radiative two-photon cascades from biexcitons in semiconductor quantum dots under resonant two-photon excitation are promising candidates for the generation of photon pairs. In this work, we propose a scheme to obtain two-photon emission that allows us to operate under very intense driving fields. This approach relies on the Purcell enhancement of two-photon virtual transitions between states of the biexciton dressed by the laser. The richness provided by the biexcitonic level structure allows to reach a variety of regimes, from antibunched and bunched photon pairs with polarization orthogonal to the driving field, to polarization entangled two-photon emission. This provides evidence that the general paradigm of two-photon emission from a ladder of dressed states can find interesting, particular implementations in a variety of systems.

arXiv:1506.05050•New Journal of Physics•Dec 16, 2015•70 citations
Entangled photon pairs are a crucial resource in quantum information processing. However, common sources of entangled photon pairs, such as generation by spontaneous parametric down-conversion, impose a Poisson distribution on the pairs, limiting their applicability to quantum information processing. Therefore, generating entangled photon pairs exhibiting a sub-Poisson distribution (i.e., entangled photon bundle) would be crucial/an important advancement in the current research context. Recently, it has been proposed that antibunched photon pairs can be generated using pulsed excitation of quantum dots based on photon blockade. In this work we propose a scheme to generate entangled photon pairs with strong antibunching properties via continuous driving. Under two-photon resonant continuous pumping, a quantum dot is first excited to a biexciton state and then emits a pair of entangled photons into a two-mode cavity. Owing to the strong coupling between the quantum dot and optical modes of the cavity, at most one pair of left-/right-polarized photons exists at a time in the cavity. Specifically, the antibunching effect, average photon number, and entanglement of the left- or right-polarized photons can be resonantly enhanced when the coupling strengths between the exciton (biexciton) transition and cavity modes are equal. Moreover, our results show that the binding energy of the biexciton substantially affects the antibunching effect, average photon number, and entanglement of the left-/right-polarized photons. With suitable parameters, we can realize photon pairs with strong antibunching, a large average photon number, and deep entanglement. Hence, the studied quantum dot-cavity system is a promising source of antibunched entangled photon pairs.
Semiconductor quantum dots are among the best sources of on-demand entangled photon pairs. The degree of entanglement, however, is generally limited by the fine structure splitting of exciton states. In this paper, we theoretically investigate the generation of polarization-entangled photon pairs under two-photon excitation and cavity-assisted two-photon emission, both in the weak and strong cavity coupling regimes. We demonstrate and clarify that cavity coupling together with an excitation pulse reduces the degree of entanglement in three different ways. First, in a strong coupling regime, the cavity introduces the unequal ac-Stark shift of horizontally and vertically polarized exciton states, which results in the effective splitting of exciton states. Second, it induces the cross-coupling between the exciton states even in the weak coupling regime, causing the creation of unfavorable two-photon states. Finally, higher excited states of the cavity modes also contribute to the reduction of entanglement. Therefore, in the setting considered here, cavity coupling, which is generally required for the efficient collection of emitted photons, degrades the entanglement both in weak and strong coupling regimes.
Abstract Spontaneous two-photon emission is a process in which the transition between two quantum states happens via simultaneous emissions of two identical photons. Such second-order quantum radiation is of paramount importance in astrophysics, atomic physics, and quantum technology. In particular, on-demand spontaneous two-photon emission from single quantum emitters has long been envisioned to revolutionize photonic quantum science and technology. To date, experimental realizations of two-photon emission at the single quanta level are still highly challenging yet elusive due to their low probabilities. In this work, we explore spontaneous two-photon emission from a single semiconductor quantum dot deterministically coupled to a high-quality microcavity in which the cavity resonances greatly enhance both excitation and emission processes. When the cavity is resonant to the half energy of the biexciton, the strong vacuum field in the cavity mode drives the biexciton to the ground state and simultaneously emits two photons into the cavity mode, resulting in two-photon emissions with a record brightness comparable to the competing single-photon process and sub-nanowatt power consumption. For the first time, the quantum nature associated with spontaneous two-photon emissions in the cavity quantum electrodynamics regime has been investigated via photon statistics measurements. Furthermore, spontaneous two-photon emission is exploited to build unconventional entangled quantum light sources with the unique advantage of combining the best of two worlds: near-unity entanglement fidelity for spontaneous parametric down-conversion source and on-demand photon emissions for atomic quantum emitters. Our work provides unprecedented insights into the two-photon process in the quantum regime and opens an unexplored avenue for pursuing optically reconfigurable quantum light sources with nonlinear quantum radiations.
Theoretical study on entangled photon generation from a quantum dot (QD) embedded in microcavity is briefly reviewed within a strong coupling regime. In this system, entangled photon pairs can be generated through the cascade photon emission via dressed states in the cavity quantum electrodynamics (CQED). Excitation levels of a QD are modeled by a V-type three-level system and four-level system including a biexciton. In contrast to the entangled-photon generation until now, all four Bell states can be generated from an identical cavity system by simply selecting applied-field polarizations and frequencies as characteristic features of the CQED. The CQED effects play a crucial role in providing a high degree of entanglement: (i) spectral fi ltering can be used to extract entangled photons due to the vacuum Rabi splitting and (ii) non-entangled co-polarized photons are strongly suppressed due to the photon blockade effect.
Semiconductor quantum dots are promising sources for polarization-entangled photons. As an alternative to the usual cascaded biexciton-exciton emission, direct two-photon emission from the biexciton can be used. With a high-quality optical resonator tuned to half the biexciton energy, a large proportion of the photons can be steered into the two-photon emission channel. In this case the degree of polarization entanglement is inherently insensitive to the exciton fine-structure splitting. In the present work we analyze the biexciton emission with particular emphasis on the influence of coupling of the quantum-dot cavity system to its environment. Especially for a high-quality cavity, the coupling to the surrounding semiconductor material can open up additional phonon-assisted decay channels. Our analysis demonstrates that with the cavity tuned to half the biexciton energy, the potentially detrimental influence of the phonons on the polarization entanglement is strongly suppressed---high degrees of entanglement can still be achieved. We further discuss spectral properties and statistics of the emitted twin photons.
We propose two schemes to realize a highly efficient solid-state source of photon pairs using four-wave mixing and stimulated Raman adiabatic passage in a single quantum dot embedded in a microcavity. A resonant continuous-wave laser applied between biexciton and exciton states and a pulsed laser applied between a ground state and exciton state are utilized to facilitate coherent pumping. We show in the case of four-wave mixing that, although the probability of generating two photons in a cavity mode is small without cavity damping, two-photon-resonant emission is enhanced by cavity damping within the strong-coupling regime. For strong continuous-wave laser, a single photon from a pulsed laser and two-photon-resonant transition through a strongly coupled cavity mode lead to a (1+2)-type Raman transition through the generated Autler-Townes doublet. We also discuss the spectrum of the generated photon pair and the photon-photon correlations in the generated photon pair.
Radiative two-photon cascades from biexcitons in semiconductor quantum dots under resonant two-photon excitation are promising candidates for the generation of photon pairs. In this work, we propose a scheme to obtain two-photon emission that allows us to operate under very intense driving fields. This approach relies on the Purcell enhancement of two-photon virtual transitions between states of the biexciton dressed by the laser. The richness provided by the biexcitonic level structure allows to reach a variety of regimes, from antibunched and bunched photon pairs with polarization orthogonal to the driving field, to polarization entangled two-photon emission. This provides evidence that the general paradigm of two-photon emission from a ladder of dressed states can find interesting, particular implementations in a variety of systems.