Title

Resonantly Driven Coherent Oscillations In A Solid-State Quantum Emitter

Abstract

Single-quantum emitters emit only one photon at a time, but the properties of the photon depend on how the emitter is excited. Incoherent excitation is simple and broadly used with solid-state emitters such as quantum dots, but does not allow direct manipulation of the quantum state. Coherent, resonant excitation on the other hand is used in pump-probe techniques to examine the quantum state of the emitter, but does not permit collection of the single-photon emission. Coherent control with simultaneous generation of photons has been an elusive goal in solid-state approaches, where, because of strong laser scattering at the detection wavelength, measurement of resonant emission has been limited to cross-polarized detection or Stokes-shift techniques. Here we demonstrate that a semiconductor quantum dot in a microcavity can be resonantly driven and its single-photon emission extracted background free. Under strong continuous-wave excitation, the dot undergoes several Rabi oscillations before emitting, which are visible as oscillations in the second-order correlation function. The quantum-dot states are therefore dressed, resulting in a Mollow-triplet emission spectrum. Such coherent control will be necessary for future high-efficiency sources of indistinguishable single photons, which can be used for quantum key distribution or through post-selection to generate entangled photon pairs. © 2009 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.

Publication Date

1-1-2009

Publication Title

Nature Physics

Volume

5

Issue

3

Number of Pages

203-207

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1184

Socpus ID

61849175997 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/61849175997

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