A quantum dot single-photon source is based on a single quantum dot placed in an optical cavity. It is an on-demand single-photon source. A laser pulse can excite a pair of carriers known as an exciton in the quantum dot. The decay of a single exciton due to spontaneous emission leads to the emission of a single photon. Due to interactions between excitons, the emission when the quantum dot contains a single exciton is energetically distinct from that when the quantum dot contains more than one exciton. Therefore, a single exciton can be deterministically created by a laser pulse and the quantum dot becomes a nonclassical light source that emits photons one by one and thus shows photon antibunching. The emission of single photons can be proven by measuring the second order intensity correlation function. The spontaneous emission rate of the emitted photons can be enhanced by integrating the quantum dot in an optical cavity. Additionally, the cavity leads to emission in a well-defined optical mode increasing the efficiency of the photon source.
With the growing interest in quantum information science since the beginning of the 21st century, research in different kinds of single-photon sources was growing. Early single-photon sources such as heralded photon sources [1] that were first reported in 1985 are based on non-deterministic processes. Quantum dot single-photon sources are on-demand. A single-photon source based on a quantum dot in a microdisk structure was reported in 2000. [2] Sources were subsequently embedded in different structures such as photonic crystals [3] or micropillars. [4] Adding distributed bragg reflectors (DBRs) allowed emission in a well-defined direction and increased emission efficiency. [5] Most quantum dot single-photon sources need to work at cryogenic temperatures, which is still a technical challenge. [5] The other challenge is to realize high-quality quantum dot single-photon sources at telecom wavelength for fiber telecommunication application. [6] The first report on Purcell-enhanced single-photon emission of a telecom-wavelength quantum dot in a two-dimensional photonic crystal cavity with a quality factor of 2,000 shows the enhancements of the emission rate and the intensity by five and six folds, respectively. [7]
Exciting an electron in a semiconductor from the valence band to the conduction band creates an excited state, a so-called exciton. The spontaneous radiative decay of this exciton results in the emission of a photon. Since a quantum dot has discrete energy levels, it can be achieved that there is never more than one exciton in the quantum dot simultaneously. Therefore, the quantum dot is an emitter of single photons. A key challenge in making a good single-photon source is to make sure that the emission from the quantum dot is collected efficiently. To do that, the quantum dot is placed in an optical cavity. The cavity can, for instance, consist of two DBRs in a micropillar (Fig. 1). The cavity enhances the spontaneous emission in a well-defined optical mode (Purcell effect), facilitating efficient guiding of the emission into an optical fiber. Furthermore, the reduced exciton lifetime (see Fig. 2) reduces the significance of linewidth broadening due to noise.
The system can then be approximated by the Jaynes-Cummings model. In this model, the quantum dot only interacts with one single mode of the optical cavity. The frequency of the optical mode is well defined. This makes the photons indistinguishable if their polarization is aligned by a polarizer. The solution of the Jaynes-Cummings Hamiltonian is a vacuum Rabi oscillation. A vacuum Rabi oscillation of a photon interacting with an exciton is known as an exciton-polariton.
To eliminate the probability of the simultaneous emission of two photons it has to be made sure that there can only be one exciton in the cavity at one time. The discrete energy states in a quantum dot allow only one excitation. Additionally, the Rydberg blockade prevents the excitation of two excitons at the same space... [8] The electromagnetic interaction with the already existing exciton changes the energy for creating another exciton at the same space slightly. If the energy of the pump laser is tuned on resonance, the second exciton cannot be created. Still, there is a small probability of having two excitations in the quantum dot at the same time. Two excitons confined in a small volume are called biexcitons. They interact with each other and thus slightly change their energy. Photons resulting from the decay of biexcitons have a different energy than photons resulting from the decay of excitons. They can be filtered out by letting the outgoing beam pass an optical filter. [9] The quantum dots can be excited both electrically and optically. [5] For optical pumping, a pulsed laser can be used for excitation of the quantum dots. In order to have the highest probability of creating an exciton, the pump laser is tuned on resonance. [10] This resembles a -pulse on the Bloch sphere. However, this way the emitted photons have the same frequency as the pump laser. A polarizer is needed to distinguish between them. [10] As the direction of polarization of the photons from the cavity is random, half of the emitted photons are blocked by this filter.
There are several ways to realize a quantum dot-cavity system that can act as a single-photon source. Typical cavity structures are micro-pillars, photonic crystal cavities, or tunable micro-cavities. Inside the cavity, different types of quantum dots can be used. The most widely used type are self-assembled InAs quantum dots grown in the Stranski-Krastanov growth mode, but other materials and growth methods such as local droplet etching [11] [12] have been used. A list of different experimental realizations is shown below:
Single photon sources exhibit antibunching. As photons are emitted one at a time, the probability of seeing two photons at the same time for an ideal source is 0. To verify the antibunching of a light source, one can measure the autocorrelation function . A photon source is antibunched if ≤ . [25] For an ideal single photon source, . Experimentally, is measured using the Hanbury Brown and Twiss effect. Using resonant excitation schemes, experimental values for are typically in the regime of just a few percent. [10] [13] Values down to have been reached without resonant excitation. [26]
For applications the photons emitted by a single photon source must be indistinguishable. The theoretical solution of the Jaynes-Cummings Hamiltonian is a well-defined mode in which only the polarization is random. After aligning the polarization of the photons, their indistinguishability can be measured. For that, the Hong-Ou-Mandel effect is used. Two photons of the source are prepared so that they enter a 50:50 beam splitter at the same time from the two different input channels. A detector is placed on both exits of the beam splitter. Coincidences between the two detectors are measured. If the photons are indistinguishable, no coincidences should occur. [27] Experimentally, almost perfect indistinguishability is found. [13] [10]
Single-photon sources are of great importance in quantum communication science. They can be used for truly random number generators. [5] Single photons entering a beam splitter exhibit inherent quantum indeterminacy. Random numbers are used extensively in simulations using the Monte Carlo method.
Furthermore, single photon sources are essential in quantum cryptography. The BB84 [28] scheme is a provable secure quantum key distribution scheme. It works with a light source that perfectly emits only one photon at a time. Due to the no-cloning theorem, [29] no eavesdropping can happen without being noticed. The use of quantum randomness while writing the key prevents any patterns in the key that can be used to decipher the code.
Apart from that, single photon sources can be used to test some fundamental properties of quantum field theory. [1]
An electron and an electron hole that are attracted to each other by the Coulomb force can form a bound state called an exciton. It is an electrically neutral quasiparticle that exists mainly in condensed matter, including insulators, semiconductors, some metals, but also in certain atoms, molecules and liquids. The exciton is regarded as an elementary excitation that can transport energy without transporting net electric charge.
Photoluminescence is light emission from any form of matter after the absorption of photons. It is one of many forms of luminescence and is initiated by photoexcitation, hence the prefix photo-. Following excitation, various relaxation processes typically occur in which other photons are re-radiated. Time periods between absorption and emission may vary: ranging from short femtosecond-regime for emission involving free-carrier plasma in inorganic semiconductors up to milliseconds for phosphoresence processes in molecular systems; and under special circumstances delay of emission may even span to minutes or hours.
Quantum dots (QDs) or semiconductor nanocrystals are semiconductor particles a few nanometres in size with optical and electronic properties that differ from those of larger particles via quantum mechanical effects. They are a central topic in nanotechnology and materials science. When a quantum dot is illuminated by UV light, an electron in the quantum dot can be excited to a state of higher energy. In the case of a semiconducting quantum dot, this process corresponds to the transition of an electron from the valence band to the conduction band. The excited electron can drop back into the valence band releasing its energy as light. This light emission (photoluminescence) is illustrated in the figure on the right. The color of that light depends on the energy difference between the discrete energy levels of the quantum dot in the conduction band and the valence band.
An optical microcavity or microresonator is a structure formed by reflecting faces on the two sides of a spacer layer or optical medium, or by wrapping a waveguide in a circular fashion to form a ring. The former type is a standing wave cavity, and the latter is a traveling wave cavity. The name microcavity stems from the fact that it is often only a few micrometers thick, the spacer layer sometimes even in the nanometer range. As with common lasers, this forms an optical cavity or optical resonator, allowing a standing wave to form inside the spacer layer or a traveling wave that goes around in the ring.
Sound amplification by stimulated emission of radiation (SASER) refers to a device that emits acoustic radiation. It focuses sound waves in a way that they can serve as accurate and high-speed carriers of information in many kinds of applications—similar to uses of laser light.
In solar cell research, carrier multiplication is the phenomenon wherein the absorption of a single photon leads to the excitation of multiple electrons from the valence band to conduction band. In the theory of a conventional solar cell, each photon is only able to excite one electron across the band gap of the semiconductor, and any excess energy in that photon is dissipated as heat. In a material with carrier multiplication, high-energy photons excite on average more than one electron across the band gap, and so in principle the solar cell can produce more useful work.
The Hong–Ou–Mandel effect is a two-photon interference effect in quantum optics that was demonstrated in 1987 by three physicists from the University of Rochester: Chung Ki Hong (홍정기), Zheyu Ou (欧哲宇), and Leonard Mandel. The effect occurs when two identical single photons enter a 1:1 beam splitter, one in each input port. When the temporal overlap of the photons on the beam splitter is perfect, the two photons will always exit the beam splitter together in the same output mode, meaning that there is zero chance that they will exit separately with one photon in each of the two outputs giving a coincidence event. The photons have a 50:50 chance of exiting (together) in either output mode. If they become more distinguishable, the probability of them each going to a different detector will increase. In this way, the interferometer coincidence signal can accurately measure bandwidth, path lengths, and timing. Since this effect relies on the existence of photons and the second quantization it can not be fully explained by classical optics.
A spaser or plasmonic laser is a type of laser which aims to confine light at a subwavelength scale far below Rayleigh's diffraction limit of light, by storing some of the light energy in electron oscillations called surface plasmon polaritons. The phenomenon was first described by David J. Bergman and Mark Stockman in 2003. The word spaser is an acronym for "surface plasmon amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The first such devices were announced in 2009 by three groups: a 44-nanometer-diameter nanoparticle with a gold core surrounded by a dyed silica gain medium created by researchers from Purdue, Norfolk State and Cornell universities, a nanowire on a silver screen by a Berkeley group, and a semiconductor layer of 90 nm surrounded by silver pumped electrically by groups at the Eindhoven University of Technology and at Arizona State University. While the Purdue-Norfolk State-Cornell team demonstrated the confined plasmonic mode, the Berkeley team and the Eindhoven-Arizona State team demonstrated lasing in the so-called plasmonic gap mode. In 2018, a team from Northwestern University demonstrated a tunable nanolaser that can preserve its high mode quality by exploiting hybrid quadrupole plasmons as an optical feedback mechanism.
Yoshihisa Yamamoto is the director of Physics & Informatics Laboratories, NTT Research, Inc. He is also Professor (Emeritus) at Stanford University and National Institute of Informatics (Tokyo).
A trion is a bound state of three charged particles. A negatively charged trion in crystals consists of two electrons and one hole, while a positively charged trion consists of two holes and one electron. The binding energy of a trion is largely determined by the exchange interaction between the two electrons (holes). The ground state of a negatively charged trion is a singlet. The triplet state is unbound in the absence of an additional potential or sufficiently strong magnetic field.
An optical transistor, also known as an optical switch or a light valve, is a device that switches or amplifies optical signals. Light occurring on an optical transistor's input changes the intensity of light emitted from the transistor's output while output power is supplied by an additional optical source. Since the input signal intensity may be weaker than that of the source, an optical transistor amplifies the optical signal. The device is the optical analog of the electronic transistor that forms the basis of modern electronic devices. Optical transistors provide a means to control light using only light and has applications in optical computing and fiber-optic communication networks. Such technology has the potential to exceed the speed of electronics, while conserving more power. The fastest demonstrated all-optical switching signal is 900 attoseconds, which paves the way to develop ultrafast optical transistors.
The Purcell effect is the enhancement of a quantum system's spontaneous emission rate by its environment. In the 1940s Edward Mills Purcell discovered the enhancement of spontaneous emission rates of atoms when they are incorporated into a resonant cavity. In terms of quantum electrodynamics the Purcell effect is a consequence of enhancement of local density of photonic states at the emitter position. It can also be considered as an interference effect. The oscillator radiates the wave which is reflected from the environment. In turn the reflection excites the oscillator either out of phase resulting in higher damping rate accompanied with the radiation enhancement or in phase with the oscillator mode leading to the radiation suppression.
A single-photon source is a light source that emits light as single particles or photons. Single-photon sources are distinct from coherent light sources (lasers) and thermal light sources such as incandescent light bulbs. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle dictates that a state with an exact number of photons of a single frequency cannot be created. However, Fock states can be studied for a system where the electric field amplitude is distributed over a narrow bandwidth. In this context, a single-photon source gives rise to an effectively one-photon number state.
The Jaynes–Cummings–Hubbard (JCH) model is a many-body quantum system modeling the quantum phase transition of light. As the name suggests, the Jaynes–Cummings–Hubbard model is a variant on the Jaynes–Cummings model; a one-dimensional JCH model consists of a chain of N coupled single-mode cavities, each with a two-level atom. Unlike in the competing Bose–Hubbard model, Jaynes–Cummings–Hubbard dynamics depend on photonic and atomic degrees of freedom and hence require strong-coupling theory for treatment. One method for realizing an experimental model of the system uses circularly-linked superconducting qubits.
Quantum-optical spectroscopy is a quantum-optical generalization of laser spectroscopy where matter is excited and probed with a sequence of laser pulses.
Linear optical quantum computing or linear optics quantum computation (LOQC), also photonic quantum computing (PQC), is a paradigm of quantum computation, allowing (under certain conditions, described below) universal quantum computation. LOQC uses photons as information carriers, mainly uses linear optical elements, or optical instruments (including reciprocal mirrors and waveplates) to process quantum information, and uses photon detectors and quantum memories to detect and store quantum information.
A nanophotonic resonator or nanocavity is an optical cavity which is on the order of tens to hundreds of nanometers in size. Optical cavities are a major component of all lasers, they are responsible for providing amplification of a light source via positive feedback, a process known as amplified spontaneous emission or ASE. Nanophotonic resonators offer inherently higher light energy confinement than ordinary cavities, which means stronger light-material interactions, and therefore lower lasing threshold provided the quality factor of the resonator is high. Nanophotonic resonators can be made with photonic crystals, silicon, diamond, or metals such as gold.
Boson sampling is a restricted model of non-universal quantum computation introduced by Scott Aaronson and Alex Arkhipov after the original work of Lidror Troyansky and Naftali Tishby, that explored possible usage of boson scattering to evaluate expectation values of permanents of matrices. The model consists of sampling from the probability distribution of identical bosons scattered by a linear interferometer. Although the problem is well defined for any bosonic particles, its photonic version is currently considered as the most promising platform for a scalable implementation of a boson sampling device, which makes it a non-universal approach to linear optical quantum computing. Moreover, while not universal, the boson sampling scheme is strongly believed to implement computing tasks which are hard to implement with classical computers by using far fewer physical resources than a full linear-optical quantum computing setup. This advantage makes it an ideal candidate for demonstrating the power of quantum computation in the near term.
Integrated quantum photonics, uses photonic integrated circuits to control photonic quantum states for applications in quantum technologies. As such, integrated quantum photonics provides a promising approach to the miniaturisation and scaling up of optical quantum circuits. The major application of integrated quantum photonics is Quantum technology:, for example quantum computing, quantum communication, quantum simulation, quantum walks and quantum metrology.
JCMsuite is a finite element analysis software package for the simulation and analysis of electromagnetic waves, elasticity and heat conduction. It also allows a mutual coupling between its optical, heat conduction and continuum mechanics solvers. The software is mainly applied for the analysis and optimization of nanooptical and microoptical systems. Its applications in research and development projects include dimensional metrology systems, photolithographic systems, photonic crystal fibers, VCSELs, Quantum-Dot emitters, light trapping in solar cells, and plasmonic systems. The design tasks can be embedded into the high-level scripting languages MATLAB and Python, enabling a scripting of design setups in order to define parameter dependent problems or to run parameter scans.
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