Leveraging crystal anisotropy for deterministic growth of InAs quantum dots with narrow optical linewidths

Control of Quantized Spontaneous Emission from Single GaAs Quantum Dots Embedded in Huygens' Metasurfaces

Advancements in photonic quantum information systems (QIS) have driven the development of high-brightness, on-demand, and indistinguishable semiconductor epitaxial quantum dots (QDs) as single photon sources. Strain-free, monodisperse, and spatially sparse local-droplet-etched (LDE) QDs have recently been demonstrated as a superior alternative to traditional Stranski-Krastanov QDs. However, integration of LDE QDs into nanophotonic architectures with the ability to scale to many interacting QDs is yet to be demonstrated. We present a potential solution by embedding isolated LDE GaAs QDs within an Al0.4Ga0.6As Huygens' metasurface with spectrally overlapping fundamental electric and magnetic dipolar resonances. We demonstrate for the first time a position- and size-independent, 1 order of magnitude increase in the collection efficiency and emission lifetime control for single-photon emission from LDE QDs embedded within the Huygens' metasurfaces. Our results represent a significant step toward leveraging the advantages of LDE QDs within nanophotonic architectures to meet the scalability demands of photonic QIS.

Scalable in operando strain tuning in nanophotonic waveguides enabling three-quantum-dot superradiance

The quest for an integrated quantum optics platform has motivated the field of semiconductor quantum dot research for two decades. Demonstrations of quantum light sources, single photon switches, transistors and spin-photon interfaces have become very advanced. Yet the fundamental problem that every quantum dot is different prevents integration and scaling beyond a few quantum dots. Here, we address this challenge by patterning strain via local phase transitions to selectively tune individual quantum dots that are embedded in a photonic architecture. The patterning is implemented with in operando laser crystallization of a thin HfO₂ film 'sheath' on the surface of a GaAs waveguide. Using this approach, we tune InAs quantum dot emission energies over the full inhomogeneous distribution with a step size down to the homogeneous linewidth and a spatial resolution better than 1 µm. Using these capabilities, we tune multiple quantum dots into resonance within the same waveguide and demonstrate a quantum interaction via superradiant emission from three quantum dots.

A quantum phase switch between a single solid-state spin and a photon

Interactions between single spins and photons are essential for quantum networks and distributed quantum computation. Achieving spin-photon interactions in a solid-state device could enable compact chip-integrated quantum circuits operating at gigahertz bandwidths. Many theoretical works have suggested using spins embedded in nanophotonic structures to attain this high-speed interface. These proposals implement a quantum switch where the spin flips the state of the photon and a photon flips the spin state. However, such a switch has not yet been realized using a solid-state spin system. Here, we report an experimental realization of a spin-photon quantum switch using a single solid-state spin embedded in a nanophotonic cavity. We show that the spin state strongly modulates the polarization of a reflected photon, and a single reflected photon coherently rotates the spin state. These strong spin-photon interactions open up a promising direction for solid-state implementations of high-speed quantum networks and on-chip quantum information processors using nanophotonic devices.

Role of re-growth interface preparation process for spectral line-width reduction of single InAs site-controlled quantum dots

We present growth and optical characterization measurements of single InAs site-controlled quantum dots (SCQDs) grown by molecular beam epitaxy on GaAs (001) patterned substrates by atomic force microscopy oxidation lithography. InAs SCQDs directly grown on the patterned surface were used as a seed layer and strain template for the nucleation of optically active single InAs SCQDs. The preservation of the initial geometry of the engraved pattern motifs after the re-growth interface preparation process, the lack of buffer layer growth prior to InAs seed layer deposition and the development of suitable growth conditions provide us an improvement of the SCQDs' active layer optical properties while retaining a high ratio of single occupation (89%). In this work a fivefold reduction of the average optical line-width from 870 μeV to 156 μeV for InAs SCQDs located 15 nm from the re-growth interface is obtained by increasing the temperature of the initial thermal treatment step of the re-growth interface from 490 °C to 530 °C.

Waveguide coupled resonance fluorescence from on-chip quantum emitter

Resonantly driven quantum emitters offer a very promising route to obtain highly coherent sources of single photons required for applications in quantum information processing (QIP). Realizing this for on-chip scalable devices would be important for scientific advances and practical applications in the field of integrated quantum optics. Here we report on-chip quantum dot (QD) resonance fluorescence (RF) efficiently coupled into a single-mode waveguide, a key component of a photonic integrated circuit, with a negligible resonant laser background and show that the QD coherence is enhanced by more than a factor of 4 compared to off-resonant excitation. Single-photon behavior is confirmed under resonant excitation, and fast fluctuating charge dynamics are revealed in autocorrelation g((2)) measurements. The potential for triggered operation is verified in pulsed RF. These results pave the way to a novel class of integrated quantum-optical devices for on-chip quantum information processing with embedded resonantly driven quantum emitters.

Quantum dots with single-atom precision

Quantum dots are often called artificial atoms because, like real atoms, they confine electrons to quantized states with discrete energies. However, although real atoms are identical, most quantum dots comprise hundreds or thousands of atoms, with inevitable variations in size and shape and, consequently, unavoidable variability in their wavefunctions and energies. Electrostatic gates can be used to mitigate these variations by adjusting the electron energy levels, but the more ambitious goal of creating quantum dots with intrinsically digital fidelity by eliminating statistical variations in their size, shape and arrangement remains elusive. We used a scanning tunnelling microscope to create quantum dots with identical, deterministic sizes. By using the lattice of a reconstructed semiconductor surface to fix the position of each atom, we controlled the shape and location of the dots with effectively zero error. This allowed us to construct quantum dot molecules whose coupling has no intrinsic variation but could nonetheless be tuned with arbitrary precision over a wide range. Digital fidelity opens the door to quantum dot architectures free of intrinsic broadening-an important goal for technologies from nanophotonics to quantum information processing as well as for fundamental studies of confined electrons.