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

Quantum 2.0 Conference and Exhibition

Photon statistics of time dependent electronic excitation of spin injected quantum dots

Chiran Wijesundara, Jeffrey Carvalho, Yuan Lü, Tim O. Thomay

Published Jan 1, 2025• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Shaping the electrical excitation pulse of spin injected quantum dots reveals a correlation between the time dynamics of higher-order photon emission and the pulse shape. This opens new pathways for integrated quantum light sources.
DOI
10.1364/quantum.2025.qth3a.20

Related papers

Photon statistics of time dependent electronic excitation of spin injected quantum dots

Chiran Wijesundara, Jeffrey Carvalho, Yuan Lü +1 more

The time dynamics of spin-injected, electrically contacted quantum dots were investigated with a focus on the time evolution of photon statistics. Photon statistics can provide insights into whether the device functions as an effective single-photon emitter or exhibits higher-order emissions. Through these investigations, we found that the shape of the electrical excitation pulse has a direct impact on photon statistics. Specifically, the rising edge of the pulse corresponds to a significantly higher number of higher-order photon states, which decay much faster than single photons associated with the falling edge of the electrical pulse. This relationship implies that the pulse shape can be tailored to optimize the device as either a better single-photon source or a generator of higher-order photon states, with potential applications in creating deterministic higher-order photon Fock states. The ability to easily modify the pulse shape is a unique feature of electrically excited quantum dots.

arXiv:2501.16747•Jan 28, 2025•0 citations

Photons on demand from an electrically driven single quantum dot under pulsed excitation

Matthias Florian, P. Gärtner, Christopher Gies +9 more

For a single quantum dot under excitation with short electrical pulses the dependence of the photon anti-bunching on pulse width and excitation strength is studied in a theory-experiment collaboration.

Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics•Jan 1, 2012•0 citations

Probing fluctuations in photon emission statistics of spin injected quantum dots with time dependent electronic excitation

Chiran Wijesundara, Vincent Iglesias-Cardinale, Yuan Lu +3 more

Electrically spin-injected ensembles of InGaAs/GaAs quantum dots emit circularly polarized single photons, with the emission helicity determined by the spin polarization of the injected electrons. A ferromagnetic CoFeB spin-injection layer with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, combined with an MgO tunnel barrier, enables spin-polarized electron injection into the quantum-dot active region, resulting in circularly polarized photon emission at zero applied magnetic field. These devices realize direct spin-charge-photon conversion in an electrically driven, microelectronics-compatible quantum light source that operates without an external pump laser. Using an extended Hanbury Brown-Twiss interferometer with four detectors and time-tagged readout, we measure time-resolved photon-number statistics that resolve up to $|2\rangle$ Fock states within a single excitation cycle. While single-photon ($n=|1\rangle$) emission tracks the electrical excitation pulse as expected, the two-photon ($n=|2\rangle$) statistics exhibit pronounced fluctuations at multiple temporal positions within the pulse. These fluctuations vanish upon demagnetization of the spin-injection layer, establishing a direct link between the multi-photon emission dynamics and the spin polarization of the injected carriers. The observations indicate that spin injection controls not only the helicity of the emitted photons but also higher-order temporal correlations of the emission. The behavior is phenomenologically captured by inserting both a variable excitation mechanism and a set of multi-emitter collapse operators within a stochastic wave function evolution. The platform thus opens a route to electrically driven, spin-controlled single and multi-photon Fock-state sources and provides a testbed for spin-conditioned multi-emitter dynamics in solid-state quantum light sources.

quant-pharXiv:2610.40593•Oct 30, 2026•0 citations

Photon statistics and entanglement in phonon-assisted quantum light emission from semiconductor quantum dots

Alexander Carmele, M-R. Dachner, Julia Kabuß +3 more

Elsevier eBooks•Jan 1, 2012•0 citations

Resonant Excitation and Photon Entanglement from Semiconductor Quantum Dots

Ana Predojević

arXiv:1503.00352•Nano-optics and nanophotonics•Jan 1, 2015•1 citation

Quantum light generation and imaging using quantum dots

Robert James Young

Semiconductor Quantum dots are potentially an attractive source of non-classical light. They can confine bound electron-hole pairs, excitons, in all three spatial dimensions giving them discrete optical emission energies, much like the electronic states in atomic systems. The semiconductor nature of the system allows quantum dots to be integrated into complicated device structures including optical cavities [1] and electrical injection [2]. The radiative exciton emission from a semiconductor quantum dot can provide the simplest form of quantum light, a single photon source [2]. The finite re-excitation time following the radiative decay of an exciton in a quantum dot prevents the dot from emitting more than one photon if excited with a short optical or electronic pulse. In a similar fashion excitation of the biexciton state, consisting of two electrons and holes, in the quantum dot results in the emission of a pair of photons at the energy of the biexciton and exciton transitions. The biexciton state was, in fact, proposed as a possible source of polarisation-entangled photons in 2000 by Benson et al. [3] as it consists of two polarisation-correlated decay paths which could potentially be indistinguishable. The condition of indistinguishability is fundamental to the generation of entangled photons and is, in general, not true of the two decay paths from the biexciton state in a quantum dot; physical anisotropy causes the intermediate exciton states to hybridise and separate in energy providing ‘which-path’ information about the route taken through the biexciton decay. We demonstrate how the splitting between the intermediate exciton states in a single InAs quantum dot can be controlled by growth [4], rapid thermal annealing [5] and the application of an external magnetic field [6]. Each of these three techniques can be used to make the intermediate exciton states degenerate allowing the biexciton decay to produce singe pairs of entangled photons triggered by short laser pulses [7,8]. Entangled photon pair sources are essential for applications such as entanglement based quantum key distribution, and optical quantum computing. For these applications it is important that no more than one entangled photon pair is generated in a cycle, a requirement met by our quantum dot source which is not possible with traditional methods for generating entangled pairs of photons. Entanglement also enables quantum interferometry and metrology, the basis of image resolution beyond that possible with equivalent classical light. Biphoton interferometry using entangled emission from the biexciton decay reveals fringes with half the period of classical light [9], and less that that of the laser. In addition, interferometry suggests that this type of entangled light source is not limited by decoherence, we fine the biphoton is surprising robust against dephasing, in stark contrast to the devastating effect of decoherence upon single photons emitted by similar structures.

•Jun 4, 2007•0 citations
The time dynamics of spin-injected, electrically contacted quantum dots were investigated with a focus on the time evolution of photon statistics. Photon statistics can provide insights into whether the device functions as an effective single-photon emitter or exhibits higher-order emissions. Through these investigations, we found that the shape of the electrical excitation pulse has a direct impact on photon statistics. Specifically, the rising edge of the pulse corresponds to a significantly higher number of higher-order photon states, which decay much faster than single photons associated with the falling edge of the electrical pulse. This relationship implies that the pulse shape can be tailored to optimize the device as either a better single-photon source or a generator of higher-order photon states, with potential applications in creating deterministic higher-order photon Fock states. The ability to easily modify the pulse shape is a unique feature of electrically excited quantum dots.
Electrically spin-injected ensembles of InGaAs/GaAs quantum dots emit circularly polarized single photons, with the emission helicity determined by the spin polarization of the injected electrons. A ferromagnetic CoFeB spin-injection layer with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, combined with an MgO tunnel barrier, enables spin-polarized electron injection into the quantum-dot active region, resulting in circularly polarized photon emission at zero applied magnetic field. These devices realize direct spin-charge-photon conversion in an electrically driven, microelectronics-compatible quantum light source that operates without an external pump laser. Using an extended Hanbury Brown-Twiss interferometer with four detectors and time-tagged readout, we measure time-resolved photon-number statistics that resolve up to ∣2⟩|2\rangle∣2⟩ Fock states within a single excitation cycle. While single-photon (n=∣1⟩n=|1\ranglen=∣1⟩) emission tracks the electrical excitation pulse as expected, the two-photon (n=∣2⟩n=|2\ranglen=∣2⟩) statistics exhibit pronounced fluctuations at multiple temporal positions within the pulse. These fluctuations vanish upon demagnetization of the spin-injection layer, establishing a direct link between the multi-photon emission dynamics and the spin polarization of the injected carriers. The observations indicate that spin injection controls not only the helicity of the emitted photons but also higher-order temporal correlations of the emission. The behavior is phenomenologically captured by inserting both a variable excitation mechanism and a set of multi-emitter collapse operators within a stochastic wave function evolution. The platform thus opens a route to electrically driven, spin-controlled single and multi-photon Fock-state sources and provides a testbed for spin-conditioned multi-emitter dynamics in solid-state quantum light sources.
Semiconductor Quantum dots are potentially an attractive source of non-classical light. They can confine bound electron-hole pairs, excitons, in all three spatial dimensions giving them discrete optical emission energies, much like the electronic states in atomic systems. The semiconductor nature of the system allows quantum dots to be integrated into complicated device structures including optical cavities [1] and electrical injection [2]. The radiative exciton emission from a semiconductor quantum dot can provide the simplest form of quantum light, a single photon source [2]. The finite re-excitation time following the radiative decay of an exciton in a quantum dot prevents the dot from emitting more than one photon if excited with a short optical or electronic pulse. In a similar fashion excitation of the biexciton state, consisting of two electrons and holes, in the quantum dot results in the emission of a pair of photons at the energy of the biexciton and exciton transitions. The biexciton state was, in fact, proposed as a possible source of polarisation-entangled photons in 2000 by Benson et al. [3] as it consists of two polarisation-correlated decay paths which could potentially be indistinguishable. The condition of indistinguishability is fundamental to the generation of entangled photons and is, in general, not true of the two decay paths from the biexciton state in a quantum dot; physical anisotropy causes the intermediate exciton states to hybridise and separate in energy providing ‘which-path’ information about the route taken through the biexciton decay. We demonstrate how the splitting between the intermediate exciton states in a single InAs quantum dot can be controlled by growth [4], rapid thermal annealing [5] and the application of an external magnetic field [6]. Each of these three techniques can be used to make the intermediate exciton states degenerate allowing the biexciton decay to produce singe pairs of entangled photons triggered by short laser pulses [7,8]. Entangled photon pair sources are essential for applications such as entanglement based quantum key distribution, and optical quantum computing. For these applications it is important that no more than one entangled photon pair is generated in a cycle, a requirement met by our quantum dot source which is not possible with traditional methods for generating entangled pairs of photons. Entanglement also enables quantum interferometry and metrology, the basis of image resolution beyond that possible with equivalent classical light. Biphoton interferometry using entangled emission from the biexciton decay reveals fringes with half the period of classical light [9], and less that that of the laser. In addition, interferometry suggests that this type of entangled light source is not limited by decoherence, we fine the biphoton is surprising robust against dephasing, in stark contrast to the devastating effect of decoherence upon single photons emitted by similar structures.