No Arabic abstract
Single-photon sources based on semiconductor quantum dots have emerged as an excellent platform for high efficiency quantum light generation. However, scalability remains a challenge since quantum dots generally present inhomogeneous characteristics. Here we benchmark the performance of fifteen deterministically fabricated single-photon sources. They display an average indistinguishability of 90.6 +/- 2.8 % with a single-photon purity of 95.4 +/- 1.5 % and high homogeneity in operation wavelength and temporal profile. Each source also has state-of-the-art brightness with an average first lens brightness value of 13.6 +/- 4.4 %. Whilst the highest brightness is obtained with a charged quantum dot, the highest quantum purity is obtained with neutral ones. We also introduce various techniques to identify the nature of the emitting state. Our study sets the groundwork for large-scale fabrication of identical sources by identifying the remaining challenges and outlining solutions.
Single epitaxially-grown semiconductor quantum dots have great potential as single photon sources for photonic quantum technologies, though in practice devices often exhibit non-ideal behavior. Here, we demonstrate that amplitude modulation can improve the performance of quantum-dot-based sources. Starting with a bright source consisting of a single quantum dot in a fiber-coupled microdisk cavity, we use synchronized amplitude modulation to temporally filter the emitted light. We observe that the single photon purity, temporal overlap between successive emission events, and indistinguishability can be greatly improved with this technique. As this method can be applied to any triggered single photon source, independent of geometry and after device fabrication, it is a flexible approach to improve the performance of solid-state systems, which often suffer from excess dephasing and multi-photon background emission.
Quantum communication places stringent requirements on single-photon sources. Here we report a theoretical study of the cavity Purcell enhancement of two diamond point defects, the nickel-nitrogen (NE8) and silicon-vacancy (SiV) centers, for high-performance, near on-demand single-photon generation. By coupling the centers strongly to high-finesse optical photonic-bandgap cavities with modest quality factor Q = O(10^4) and small mode volume V = O(lambda^3), these system can deliver picosecond single-photon pulses at their zero-phonon lines with probabilities of 0.954 (NE8) and 0.812 (SiV) under a realistic optical excitation scheme. The undesirable blinking effect due to transitions via metastable states can also be suppressed with O(10^{-4}) blinking probability. We analyze the application of these enhanced centers, including the previously-studied cavity-enhanced nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center, to long-distance BB84 quantum key distribution (QKD) in fiber-based, open-air terrestrial and satellite-ground setups. In this comparative study, we show that they can deliver performance comparable with decoy state implementation with weak coherent sources, and are most suitable for open-air communication.
Efficient, high rate photon sources with high single photon purity are essential ingredients for quantum technologies. Single photon sources based on solid state emitters such as quantum dots are very advantageous for integrated photonic circuits, but they can suffer from a high two-photon emission probability, which in cases of non-cryogenic environment cannot be spectrally filtered. Here we propose two temporal purification-by-heralding methods for using a two photon emission process to yield highly pure and efficient single photon emission, bypassing the inherent problem of spectrally overlapping bi-photon emission. We experimentally demonstrate their feasibility on the emission from a single nanocrystal quantum dot, exhibiting single photon purities exceeding 99.5%, without a significant loss of single photon efficiency. These methods can be applied for any indeterministic source of spectrally broadband photon pairs.
We propose methods for realization of continuous two photon source using coherently pumped quantum dot embedded inside a photonic crystal cavity. We analyze steady state population in quantum dot energy levels and field inside the cavity mode. We find conditions for population inversion in coherently pumped and incoherently pumped quantum dot. We show that squeezing in the output for two two photon laser is not visible using coherent as well as incoherent pump. We discuss effect of phonon coupling using recently developed polaron transformed master equation at low temperatures. We also propose scheme for generating squeezed state of field using four wave mixing.
We present rigorous and intuitive master equation models to study on-demand single photon sources from pulse-excited quantum dots coupled to cavities. We consider three methods of source excitation: resonant pi-pulse, off-resonant phonon-assisted inversion, and two-photon excitation of a biexciton-exciton cascade, and investigate the effect of the pulse excitation process on the quantum indistinguishability, efficiency, and purity of emitted photons. By explicitly modelling the time-dependent pulsed excitation process in a manner which captures non-Markovian effects associated with coupling to photon and phonon reservoirs, we find that photons of near-unity indistinguishability can be emitted with over 90% efficiency for all these schemes, with the off-resonant schemes not necessarily requiring polarization filtering due to the frequency separation of the excitation pulse, and allowing for very high single photon purities. Furthermore, the off-resonant methods are shown to be robust over certain parameter regimes, with less stringent requirements on the excitation pulse duration in particular. We also derive a semi-analytical simplification of our master equation for the off-resonant drive, which gives insight into the important role that exciton-phonon decoupling for a strong drive plays in the off-resonant phonon-assisted inversion process