No Arabic abstract
The strong-coupling regime of cavity-quantum-electrodynamics (cQED) represents light-matter interaction at the fully quantum level. Adding a single photon shifts the resonance frequencies, a profound nonlinearity. cQED is a test-bed of quantum optics and the basis of photon-photon and atom-atom entangling gates. At microwave frequencies, success in cQED has had a transformative effect. At optical frequencies, the gates are potentially much faster and the photons can propagate over long distances and be easily detected, ideal features for quantum networks. Following pioneering work on single atoms, solid-state implementations are important for developing practicable quantum technology. Here, we embed a semiconductor quantum dot in a microcavity. The microcavity has a $mathcal{Q}$-factor close to $10^{6}$ and contains a charge-tunable quantum dot with close-to-transform-limited optical linewidth. The exciton-photon coupling rate $g$ exceeds both the photon decay rate $kappa$ and exciton decay rate $gamma$ by a large margin ($g/gamma=14$, $g/kappa=5.3$); the cooperativity is $C=2g^{2}/(gamma kappa)=150$, the $beta$-factor 99.7%. We observe pronounced vacuum Rabi oscillations in the time-domain, photon blockade at a one-photon resonance, and highly bunched photon statistics at a two-photon resonance. We use the change in photon statistics as a sensitive spectral probe of transitions between the first and second rungs of the Jaynes-Cummings ladder. All experiments can be described quantitatively with the Jaynes-Cummings model despite the complexity of the solid-state environment. We propose this system as a platform to develop optical-cQED for quantum technology, for instance a photon-photon entangling gate.
Hybrid quantum systems based on spin ensembles coupled to superconducting microwave cavities are promising candidates for robust experiments in cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) and for future technologies employing quantum mechanical effects. Currently the main source of decoherence in these systems is inho- mogeneous spin broadening, which limits their performance for the coherent transfer and storage of quantum information. Here we study the dynamics of a superconducting cavity strongly coupled to an ensemble of nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond. We experimentally observe for the first time, how decoherence induced by a non-Lorentzian spin distribution can be suppressed in the strong-coupling regime - a phenomenon known as cavity protection. To demonstrate the potential of this effect for coherent control schemes, we show how appropriately chosen microwave pulses can increase the amplitude of coherent oscillations between cavity and spin ensemble by two orders of magnitude.
We derive analytical formulas for the forward emission and side emission spectra of cavity-modified single-photon sources, as well as the corresponding normal-mode oscillations in the cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) strong-coupling regime. We investigate the effects of pure dephasing, treated in the phase-diffusion model based on a Wiener-Levy process, on the emission spectra and normal-mode oscillations. We also extend our previous calculation of quantum efficiency to include the pure dephasing process. All results are obtained in the Weisskopf-Wigner approximation for an impulse-excited emitter. We find that the spectra are broadened, the depths of the normal-mode oscillations are reduced and the quantum efficiency is decreased in the presence of pure dephasing.
Giant optical Faraday rotation (GFR) and giant optical circular birefringence (GCB) induced by a single quantum-dot spin in an optical microcavity can be regarded as linear effects in the weak-excitation approximation if the input field lies in the low-power limit [Hu et al, Phys.Rev. B {bf 78}, 085307(2008) and ibid {bf 80}, 205326(2009)]. In this work, we investigate the transition from the weak-excitation approximation moving into the saturation regime comparing a semiclassical approximation with the numerical results from a quantum optics toolbox [S.M. Tan, J. Opt. B {bf 1}, 424 (1999)]. We find that the GFR and GCB around the cavity resonance in the strong coupling regime are input-field independent at intermediate powers and can be well described by the semiclassical approximation. Those associated with the dressed state resonances in the strong coupling regime or merging with the cavity resonance in the Purcell regime are sensitive to input field at intermediate powers, and cannot be well described by the semiclassical approximation due to the quantum dot saturation. As the GFR and GCB around the cavity resonance are relatively immune to the saturation effects, the rapid read out of single electron spins can be carried out with coherent state and other statistically fluctuating light fields. This also shows that high speed quantum entangling gates, robust against input power variations, can be built exploiting these linear effects.
We present a semiconductor master equation technique to study the input/output characteristics of coherent photon transport in a semiconductor waveguide-cavity system containing a single quantum dot. We use this approach to investigate the effects of photon propagation and anharmonic cavity-QED for various dot-cavity interaction strengths, including weakly-coupled, intermediately-coupled, and strongly-coupled regimes. We demonstrate that for mean photon numbers much less than 0.1, the commonly adopted weak excitation (single quantum) approximation breaks down, even in the weak coupling regime. As a measure of the anharmonic multiphoton-correlations, we compute the Fano factor and the correlation error associated with making a semiclassical approximation. We also explore the role of electron--acoustic-phonon scattering and find that phonon-mediated scattering plays a qualitatively important role on the light propagation characteristics. As an application of the theory, we simulate a conditional phase gate at a phonon bath temperature of $20 $K in the strong coupling regime.
Demonstrating and exploiting the quantum nature of larger, more macroscopic mechanical objects would help us to directly investigate the limitations of quantum-based measurements and quantum information protocols, as well as test long standing questions about macroscopic quantum coherence. The field of cavity opto- and electro-mechanics, in which a mechanical oscillator is parametrically coupled to an electromagnetic resonance, provides a practical architecture for the manipulation and detection of motion at the quantum level. Reaching this quantum level requires strong coupling, interaction timescales between the two systems that are faster than the time it takes for energy to be dissipated. By incorporating a free-standing, flexible aluminum membrane into a lumped-element superconducting resonant cavity, we have increased the single photon coupling strength between radio-frequency mechanical motion and resonant microwave photons by more than two orders of magnitude beyond the current state-of-the-art. A parametric drive tone at the difference frequency between the two resonant systems dramatically increases the overall coupling strength. This has allowed us to completely enter the strong coupling regime. This is evidenced by a maximum normal mode splitting of nearly six bare cavity line-widths. Spectroscopic measurements of these dressed states are in excellent quantitative agreement with recent theoretical predictions. The basic architecture presented here provides a feasible path to ground-state cooling and subsequent coherent control and measurement of the quantum states of mechanical motion.