Ultrafast Room Temperature Single-Photon Source from Nanowire-Quantum Dots

Bounouar, S.; Elouneg-Jamroz, Miryam; Hertog, M. den; Morchutt, C.; Bellet-Amalric, E.; André, R.; Bougerol, Catherine; Genuist, Y.; Poizat, Jean‐Philippe; Tatarenko, S.; Kheng, K.

doi:10.1021/nl300733f

Cited by 81 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 31 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Top-down fabrication of the photonic waveguide is technologically complex, however. Bottom-up fabrication of the photonic waveguide is very attractive 4-6 , but it is at present challenging to self-assemble quantum dots in the nanowires with narrow linewidths and high yields 7,8 . Nano-sensing applications are at present not highly developed.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-assembled quantum dots in a nanowire system for quantum photonics

et al. 2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Quantum dots embedded within nanowires represent one of the most promising technologies for applications in quantum photonics. Whereas the top-down fabrication of such structures remains a technological challenge, their bottom-up fabrication through self-assembly is a potentially more powerful strategy. However, present approaches often yield quantum dots with large optical linewidths, making reproducibility of their physical properties difficult. We present a versatile quantum-dot-innanowire system that reproducibly self-assembles in core-shell GaAs/AlGaAs nanowires. The quantum dots form at the apex of a GaAs/AlGaAs interface, are highly stable, and can be positioned with nanometre precision relative to the nanowire centre. Unusually, their emission is blue-shifted relative to the lowest energy continuum states of the GaAs core. Large-scale electronic structure calculations show that the origin of the optical transitions lies in quantum confinement due to Al-rich barriers. By emitting in the red and self-assembling on silicon substrates, these quantum dots could therefore become building blocks for solid-state lighting devices and third-generation solar cells. S emiconductor quantum dots have been shown to be excellent building blocks for quantum photonics applications, such as single-photon sources and nano-sensing. Desirable properties of a single-photon emitter include high-fidelity anti-bunching (very small g 2 (t = 0)), narrow emission lines (ideally transform limited to a few microelectronvolt) and high brightness (>1 MHz count rate on standard detector). For simplicity, these properties should be achieved either with electrical injection or non-resonant optical excitation. Desirable properties of a nano-sensor include a high sensitivity to local electric and magnetic fields, with the quantum dot located as close as possible to the target region. A popular realization involves Stranski-Krastanow InGaAs quantum dots embedded in a three-dimensional matrix, which are excellent building blocks for the realization of practical singlephoton sources 1 . However, the photon extraction out of the bulk semiconductor is highly inefficient on account of the large mismatch in refractive indices of GaAs and vacuum. An attractive way forward is to embed the quantum dots in a nanowire 2 . To solve the extraction problem, the nanowire is designed to operate as a single-mode waveguide, a so-called photonic nanowire, with a taper as photon out-coupler 3 . Also, for nano-sensing applications, a quantum dot in a nanowire can be located much closer to the active medium. Top-down fabrication of the photonic waveguide is technologically complex, however. Bottom-up fabrication of the photonic waveguide is very attractive 4-6 , but it is at present challenging to self-assemble quantum dots in the nanowires with narrow linewidths and high yields 7,8 . Nano-sensing applications are at present not highly developed. Other degrees of freedom of the quantum-dot-in-nanowire system that can be usefully exploited are the mechanical modes ...

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-assembled quantum dots in a nanowire system for quantum photonics

et al. 2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…S ince the early demonstration of a quantum dot (QD) singlephoton source [1][2][3][4][5] , there have been numerous reports on single-photon emission in a wide range of temperatures, with or without the use of a microcavity and with optical or electrical excitation [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] . Generally, the electrically driven singlephoton emitters are all-epitaxial heterostructures.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Electrically driven polarized single-photon emission from an InGaN quantum dot in a GaN nanowire

et al. 2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In a classical light source, such as a laser, the photon number follows a Poissonian distribution. For quantum information processing and metrology applications, a non-classical emitter of single photons is required. A single quantum dot is an ideal source of single photons and such single-photon sources in the visible spectral range have been demonstrated with III-nitride and II-VI-based single quantum dots. It has been suggested that shortwavelength blue single-photon emitters would be useful for free-space quantum cryptography, with the availability of high-speed single-photon detectors in this spectral region. Here we demonstrate blue single-photon emission with electrical injection from an In 0.25 Ga 0.75 N quantum dot in a single nanowire. The emitted single photons are linearly polarized along the c axis of the nanowire with a degree of linear polarization of B70%.

show abstract

“…On the other hand, sources based on single solid-state quantum systems have been greatly developped in the last decade, as they hold the promise to combine indistinguishable, on-demand, energy-efficient, electrically drivable and scalable characteristics. However, except at cryogenics temperature, solid-state systems emitting single-photons are subject to strong pure dephasing processes [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29], making them at first view inappropriate for quantum applications requiring photon indistinguishability.A two-level quantum emitter (QE) coupled only to vacuum fluctuations should emit perfectly indistinguishable photons. However, as soon as pure dephasing of the QE occurs, the degree of indistinguishability of the emitted photons is reduced to [30]…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Cavity-Funneled Generation of Indistinguishable Single Photons from Strongly Dissipative Quantum Emitters

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We investigate theoretically the generation of indistinguishable single photons from a strongly dissipative quantum system placed inside an optical cavity. The degree of indistinguishability of photons emitted by the cavity is calculated as a function of the emitter-cavity coupling strength and the cavity linewidth. For a quantum emitter subject to strong pure dephasing, our calculations reveal that an unconventional regime of high indistinguishability can be reached for moderate emittercavity coupling strengths and high quality factor cavities. In this regime, the broad spectrum of the dissipative quantum system is funneled into the narrow lineshape of the cavity. The associated efficiency is found to greatly surpass spectral filtering effects. Our findings open the path towards on-chip scalable indistinguishable-photon emitting devices operating at room temperature.Indistinguishable single photons are the building blocks of various optically-based quantum information applications such as linear optical quantum computing [1, 2], boson sampling [3][4][5][6][7], quantum teleportation [8] or quantum networks [9]. Indistinguishable photons are usually generated either using parametric down conversion [10], or alternatively directly from a single two-level quantum emitter such as atoms, color centers, quantum dots or organic molecules [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. Parametric down conversion is presently the most mature technology available, but the usual low efficiency of the nonlinear processes is a severe limitation to the scalability of such sources. On the other hand, sources based on single solid-state quantum systems have been greatly developped in the last decade, as they hold the promise to combine indistinguishable, on-demand, energy-efficient, electrically drivable and scalable characteristics. However, except at cryogenics temperature, solid-state systems emitting single-photons are subject to strong pure dephasing processes [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29], making them at first view inappropriate for quantum applications requiring photon indistinguishability.A two-level quantum emitter (QE) coupled only to vacuum fluctuations should emit perfectly indistinguishable photons. However, as soon as pure dephasing of the QE occurs, the degree of indistinguishability of the emitted photons is reduced to [30]where γ = 1/T 1 is the population decay rate, γ * /2 = 1/T * 2 the pure dephasing rate, and 1/T 2 = 2/T 1 + 1/T 2 * the total dephasing rate. For solid-state QE emitting photons at room temperature such as color centers, quantum dots or organic molecules, pure dephasing rates are typically several orders of magnitude larger than the population decay rate (typically ranging from 3 to 6 orders of magnitude) [12,14,21,22,24,[26][27][28][29]31]. Hence the intrinsic indistinguishability given by Eq. 1 is almost zero. A possible way to enhance the indistinguishability is to spectrally filter the emitted photons a posteriori. However, this linear-filter strategy leads to a very low efficiency. Engin...

show abstract

Ultrafast Room Temperature Single-Photon Source from Nanowire-Quantum Dots

Cited by 81 publications

References 31 publications

Self-assembled quantum dots in a nanowire system for quantum photonics

Self-assembled quantum dots in a nanowire system for quantum photonics

Electrically driven polarized single-photon emission from an InGaN quantum dot in a GaN nanowire

Cavity-Funneled Generation of Indistinguishable Single Photons from Strongly Dissipative Quantum Emitters

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About