Fast preparation of single hole spin in InAs/GaAs quantum dot in Voigt geometry magnetic field

The preparation of a coherent heavy-hole spin via ionization of a spin-polarized electron-hole pair in an InAs/GaAs quantum dot in a Voigt geometry magnetic field is investigated. For a dot with a 17 ueV bright-exciton fine-structure splitting, the fidelity of the spin preparation is limited to 0.75, with optimum preparation occurring when the effective fine-structure of the bright-exciton matches the in-plane hole Zeeman energy. In principle, higher fidelities can be achieved by minimizing the bright-exciton fine-structure splitting.

Coherent optical control of the spin of a single hole in a quantum dot

We demonstrate coherent optical control of a single hole spin confined to an InAs/GaAs quantum dot. A superposition of hole spin states is created by fast (10-100 ps) dissociation of a spin-polarized electron-hole pair. Full control of the hole-spin is achieved by combining coherent rotations about two axes: Larmor precession of the hole-spin about an external Voigt geometry magnetic field, and rotation about the optical-axis due to the geometric phase shift induced by a picosecond laser pulse resonant with the hole-trion transition.