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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Hyperfine interaction limits polarization entanglement of photons from semiconductor quantum dots

Christian Schimpf1,*, Francesco Basso Basset2, Maximilian Aigner1, Wolfgang Attenender1, Laia Ginés3, Gabriel Undeutsch1, Marcus Reindl1, Daniel Huber1, Dorian Gangloff4 et al.

Evgeny A. Chekhovich5, Christian Schneider6, Sven Höfling7, Ana Predojević3, Rinaldo Trotta2, and Armando Rastelli1

  • 1Institute of Semiconductor and Solid State Physics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, 4040 Linz, Austria
  • 2Department of Physics, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
  • 3Department of Physics, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
  • 4Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PJ, United Kingdom
  • 5Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S3 7RH, United Kingdom
  • 6Institute of Physics, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, 26111 Oldenburg, Germany
  • 7Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Physikalisches Institut, Lehrstuhl für Technische Physik, Am Hubland, 97074 Würzburg, Germany

  • *christian.schimpf@eng.ox.ac.uk

Phys. Rev. B 108, L081405 – Published 15 August, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.108.L081405

Abstract

Excitons in quantum dots are excellent sources of polarization-entangled photon pairs, but a quantitative understanding of their interaction with the nuclear spin bath is still missing. Here we investigate the role of hyperfine energy shifts using experimentally accessible parameters and derive an upper limit to the achievable entanglement fidelity. Our results are consistent with all available literature, indicate that spin noise is often the dominant process limiting the entanglement in InGaAs quantum dots, and suggest routes to alleviate its effect.

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