Cascaded single-photon emission from the Mollow triplet sidebands of a quantum dot

Abstract

1Emission from a resonantly excited quantum emitter is a fascinating research topic within quantum optics and a useful source for different types of quantum light fields. The resonance spectrum consists of a single spectral line below saturation of a quantum emitter which develops into a triplet at powers above saturation of the emitter [1][2][3]. The spectral properties of the triplet strongly depends on pump power [4,5] and detuning of the excitation laser. The three closely spaced photon channels from the resonance fluorescence have different photon statistical signatures [6]. We present a detailed photon-statistics analysis of the resonance fluorescence emission triplet from a solid state-based artificial atom, i.e. a semiconductor quantum dot. The photon correlation measurements demonstrate both 'single' and 'heralded' photon emission from the Mollow triplet sidebands [6]. The ultra-bright and narrowband emission (5.9 MHz into the first lens) can be conveniently frequency-tuned by laser detuning over 15 times its linewidth (∆ν ≈ 1.0 GHz). These unique properties make the Mollow triplet sideband emission a valuable light source for, e.g.quantum light spectroscopy and quantum information applications [7].Generation of non-classical light fields like single-, entangled-and heralded-photons form a vital part of many schemes of quantum information and computation. Atom optics demonstrated the heralded emission of single photons using resonance fluorescence from single atoms [8] and from cold atoms in a cavity [9]. Currently most of the heralded photon schemes use sources based on parametric down conversion [10]. Recently, there has been important developments in fiber-based heralded photon sources using four-wave mixing [11].Both of these techniques present Poissonian statistics with photon bandwidths usually larger than 100 GHz. The increased two-photon yield in these photon sources is at the expense of fidelity. Semiconductor QDs have demonstrated single- [12], entangled- [13,14] and heralded-photon sources [15] but mostly under non-resonant excitation schemes. Though, coherent excitation conditions of those quantum emitters are an important precondition since these promise to minimize most of the dephasing caused by the non-resonant, i.e. incoherent processes [7]. Coherent control of QD excitons has been demonstrated in a variety of experiments exhibiting Rabi splitting [16], Rabi oscillations [17], and resonant absorption [18,19]. Observations of oscillations in the first-order correlation [20], charac-2 teristic emission spectra in the frequency domain [21], and oscillations of the second-order photon correlation function [2] were all measured directly on the resonance emission from the QD. In particular, single-photon emission from a single fluorescence line (below the emitter saturation) along with photon indistinguishability as high as 90% was demonstrated [3]. Also the AC Stark shift of an exciton was used to bring the initially split QD exciton components into resonance with each other, thus forming a ...

Optimization of photon correlations by frequency filtering

“…It is natural to inquire what the correlations of each peak in isolation are or what the cross correlations between peaks are [7,8]. Experimentally, this is readily achieved by inserted filters in the arms of the Hanbury Brown-Twiss configurations [9][10][11][12][13] or using a monochromator in a streak-camera setup [14]. Theoretically, the Glauber correlator must be upgraded to the so-called time-and frequency-resolved photon correlations [8,15,16],…”

Model of the Optical Emission of a Driven Semiconductor Quantum Dot: Phonon-Enhanced Coherent Scattering and Off-Resonant Sideband Narrowing

“…At larger driving strengths, however, coherent scattering is strongly suppressed, and the emission becomes dominated by incoherent (inelastic) scattering from the TLSlaser dressed states [2]. This results in a triple-peak structure in the spectrum, known as the Mollow triplet.While these fundamental predictions have long been confirmed in the traditional quantum optical setting of driven atoms [3], interest has turned more recently to their observation in solid-state TLSs (artificial atoms) such as semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) [4][5][6][7][8][9][10], single molecules [11], and superconducting circuits [12]. In the particular case of QDs, many of the archetypal features of atomic quantum optics have now been demonstrated, such as resonance fluorescence [4][5][6][7][8][9][10], coherent population oscillations [7,[13][14][15], photon anti-bunching [16,17], and two-photon interference [18][19][20].…”

Coherent control of a strongly driven silicon vacancy optical transition in diamond

“…This aspect is important for connecting quantum nodes through Hong-Ou-Mandel interference experiments 31 . Several immediate research directions emerge in the next steps: the Mollow Triplet photons in each sideband can be separated by the combination of a Michelson interferometer and Fabry-Perot filters 32 . The role of the fabry-perot filter (FB) is to filter out the excitation laser and produce a frequency tunable single-photon source by detuning the excitation laser frequency.…”