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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Swing-up dynamics in quantum emitter cavity systems: Near ideal single photons and entangled photon pairs

Nils Heinisch1, Nikolas Köcher1, David Bauch1, and Stefan Schumacher1,2,3

  • 1Department of Physics and Center for Optoelectronics and Photonics Paderborn (CeOPP), Paderborn University, Warburger Strasse 100, 33098 Paderborn, Germany
  • 2Wyant College of Optical Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA
  • 3Institute for Photonic Quantum Systems (PhoQS), Paderborn University, 33098 Paderborn, Germany

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Phys. Rev. Research 6, L012017 – Published 19 January, 2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.6.L012017

Abstract

In the SUPER scheme (Swing-UP of the quantum EmitteR population), excitation of a quantum emitter is achieved with two off-resonant, red-detuned laser pulses. This allows the generation of high-quality single photons without the need of complex laser stray light suppression or careful spectral filtering. In the present work, we extend this promising method to quantum emitters, specifically semiconductor quantum dots, inside a resonant optical cavity. A significant advantage of the SUPER scheme is identified in that it eliminates re-excitation of the quantum emitter by suppressing photon emission during the excitation cycle. This, in turn, leads to almost ideal single-photon purity, overcoming a major factor typically limiting the quality of photons generated with quantum emitters in high-quality cavities. We further find that for cavity-mediated biexciton emission of degenerate photon pairs, the SUPER scheme leads to near-perfect biexciton initialization with very high values of polarization entanglement of emitted photon pairs.

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Phys. Rev. Research 6, L012017– Published 19 January, 2024
  • Received 17 April 2023
  • Revised 22 August 2023
  • Accepted 12 December 2023
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