Sources of non-classical light are of paramount importance for future applications in quantum science and technology such as quantum communication, quantum computation and simulation, quantum sensing and quantum metrology. In this review we discuss the fundamentals and recent progress in the generation of single photons, entangled photon pairs and photonic cluster states using semiconductor quantum dots. Specific fundamentals which are discussed are a detailed quantum description of light, properties of semiconductor quantum dots and light-matter interactions. This includes a framework for the dynamic modelling of non-classical light generation and two-photon interference. Recent progress will be discussed in the generation of non-classical light for off-chip applications as well as implementations for scalable on-chip integration.
A quantum information processing scheme is proposed with semiconductor quantum dots located in a high-Q single mode QED cavity. The spin degrees of freedom of one excess conduction electron of the quantum dots are employed as qubits. Excitonic states, which can be produced ultrafastly with optical operation, are used as auxiliary states in the realization of quantum gates. We show how properly tailored ultrafast laser pulses and Pauli-blocking effects, can be used to achieve a universal encoded quantum computing.
Quantum optical phenomena are explored in artificial atoms well known as semiconductor quantum dots, in the presence of excitons and biexcitons. The analytical results are obtained using the conventional time-dependent perturbation technique. Numerical estimations are made for arealistic sample of CdS quantum dots in a high-Q cavity. Quantum optical phenomena such as quantum Rabi oscillations, photon statistics and collapse and revival of population inversion in exciton and biexciton states are observed. In the presence of biexcitons the collapse and revival phenomenon becomes faster due to th…
We propose an all-optical implementation of quantum-information processing in semiconductor quantum dots, where electron-hole excitations (excitons) serve as the computational degrees of freedom (qubits). We show that the strong dot confinement leads to an overall enhancement of Coulomb correlations and to a strong renormalization of the excitonic states, which can be exploited for performing conditional and unconditional qubit operations.
A potential scheme is proposed for realizing a two-qubit quantum gate in semiconductor quantum dots. Information is encoded in the spin degrees of freedom of one excess conduction electron of each quantum dot. We propose to use two lasers, radiation two neighboring QDs, and tuned to blue detuning with respect to the resonant frequencies of individual excitons. The two-qubit phase gate can be achieved by means of both Pauli-blocking effect and dipole-dipole coupling between intermediate excitonic states.
We study the effect of external electric bias on the quantum correlations in the array of optically excited coupled semiconductor quantum dots. The correlations are characterized by the quantum discord and concurrence and are observed using excitonic qubits. We employ the lower bound of concurrence for thermal density matrix at different temperatures. The effect of the Förster interaction on correlations will be studied. Our theoretical model detects nonvanishing quantum discord when the electric field is on while concurrence dies, ensuring the existence of nonclassical correlations as measure…
Due to coherent population oscillation (CPO) effect, we theoretically examine the generation and manipulation of Laguerre-Gaussian beams in terms of phase and amplitude modulation respectively in semiconductor quantum dots (SQDs). The results indicate that both phase modulation with low absorption of probe field and amplitude modulation with high efficiency can be achieved. Thus the practical way demonstrates that the SQDs system can function as effective optically addressed spatial light modulator with which the transverse spatial properties of probe fields can be artificially modulated.
The universal quantum computation is obtained when there exists asymmetric anisotropic exchange between electron spins in coupled semiconductor quantum dots. The asymmetric Heisenberg model can be transformed into the isotropic model through the control of two local unitary rotations for the realization of essential quantum gates. The rotations on each qubit are symmetrical and depend on the strength and orientation of asymmetric exchange. The implementation of the axially symmetric local magnetic fields can assist the construction of quantum logic gates in anisotropic coupled quantum dots. Th…
We design and analyze a logical qubit composed of a linear array of electron spins in semiconductor quantum dots. To avoid the difficulty of fully controlling a two-dimensional array of dots, we adapt spin control and error correction to a one-dimensional line of silicon quantum dots. Control speed and efficiency are maintained via a scheme in which electron spin states are controlled globally using broadband microwave pulses for magnetic resonance while two-qubit gates are provided by local electrical control of the exchange interaction between neighboring dots. Error correction with two-, th…
In this chapter we review the use of semiconductor quantum dots as sources of quantum light. Principally, we focus on resonant two-photon excitation, which is a method that allows for on-demand generation of photon pairs. We explore the advantages of resonant excitation and present a number of measurements that were made in this excitation regime. In particular, we cover the following topics: photon statistics, coherent manipulation of the ground-excited state superposition, and generation of time-bin entangled photon pairs.
Several recently proposed implementations of scalable quantum computation rely on the ability to manipulate the spin polarization of individual electrons in semiconductors. The most rapid single-spin-manipulation technique to date relies on the generation of an effective magnetic field via a spin-sensitive optical Stark effect. This approach has been used to split spin states in colloidal CdSe quantum dots and to manipulate ensembles of spins in ZnMnSe quantum wells with femtosecond optical pulses. Here we report that the process will produce a coherent rotation of spin in quantum dots contain…
We investigate the dynamics of quantum discord and concurrence between two excitonic qubits placed inside two coupled semiconductor quantum dots independently interacting with dephasing reservoirs. We explore their behavior against the dimensionless time and the temperature in both Markovian and non-Markovian environments. Moreover, we analyze the external electric field effects and the Förster interaction effects on these correlations. We show that, although the quantum correlations amount is strongly influenced by the variation of the electric field and the Förster interaction, their non-Mar…
A theoretical investigation on slow light propagation based on eletromagnetically induced transparency in a three-level quantum-dot system is performed including non-Markovian effects and correlated dephasing reservoirs. It is demonstraonated that the non-Markovian nature of the process is quite essential even for conventional dephasing typical of quantum dots leading to significant enhancement or inhibition of the group velocity slow-down factor as well as to the shifting and distortion of the transmission window. Furthermore, the correlation between dephasing reservoirs may also either enhan…
We demonstrate and characterize interference between discrete photons emitted by two separate semiconductor quantum dot states in different samples excited by a pulsed laser. Their energies are tuned into resonance using strain. The photons have a total coalescence probability of 18.1% and the coincidence rate is below the classical limit. Post-selection of coincidences within a narrow time window increases the coalescence probability to 47%. The probabilities are reduced from unity because of dephasing and the postselection value is also reduced by the detector time response.
In this theoretical manuscript I propose a scheme for entangling a single electron semiconductor spin qubit with a single electron semiconductor charge qubit in a triangular triple quantum dot configuration. Two out of three quantum dots are used to define a single electron semiconductor charge qubit. Furthermore, the spin qubit is embedded in the Zeeman sub-levels of the third quantum dot. Combining single qubit gates with entangling CNOT gates allows one to construct a SWAP gate, and therefore to use the semiconductor spin qubit as a long-lived memory for the semiconductor charge qubit.
We study theoretically the appearance of quantum correlations in two- and three-electron scattering in single and double dots. The key role played by transport resonances into entanglement formation between the single-particle states is shown. Both reflected and transmitted components of the scattered particle wavefunction are used to evaluate the quantum correlations between the incident carrier and the bound particle(s) in the dots. Our investigation provides a guideline for the analysis of decoherence effects due to the Coulomb scattering in semiconductor quantum dots structures.
We propose a scheme for a two-qubit conditional phase gate by quantum Zeno effect with semiconductor quantum dots. The system consists of two charged dots and one ancillary dot that can perform Rabi oscillations under a resonant laser pulse. The quantum Zeno effect is induced by phonon-assisted exciton relaxation between the ancillary dot and the charged dots, which is equivalent to a continuous measurement. We solve analytically the master equation and simulate the dynamics of the system using a realistic set of parameters. In contrast to standard schemes, larger phonon relaxation rates incre…
In this paper we study the implementation of non-adiabatic geometrical quantum gates with in semiconductor quantum dots. Different quantum information enconding/manipulation schemes exploiting excitonic degrees of freedom are discussed. By means of the Aharanov-Anandan geometrical phase one can avoid the limitations of adiabatic schemes relying on adiabatic Berry phase; fast geometrical quantum gates can be in principle implemented
We propose a solid-state implementation of stimulated Raman adiabatic passage in two coupled semiconductor quantum dots. Proper combination of two pulsed laser fields allows the coherent carrier transfer between the two nanostructures without suffering significant losses due to environment coupling. By use of a general solution scheme for the carrier states in the double-dot structure, we identify the pertinent dot and laser parameters.
Most optical quantum devices require deterministic single-photon emitters. Schemes so far demonstrated in the solid state imply an energy relaxation which tends to spoil the coherent nature of the time evolution, and with it the photon indistinguishability. We focus our theoretical investigation on semiconductor quantum dots embedded in microcavities. Simple and general relations are identified between the photon indistinguishability and the collection efficiency. The identification of the key parameters and of their interplay provides clear indications for the device optimization.
We show how a spin interaction between electrons localized in neighboring quantum dots can be induced and controlled optically. The coupling is generated via virtual excitation of delocalized excitons and provides an efficient coherent control of the spins. This quantum manipulation can be realized in the adiabatic limit and is robust against decoherence by spontaneous emission. Applications to the realization of quantum gates, scalable quantum computers, and to the control of magnetization in an array of charged dots are proposed.
Preparation of a specific quantum state is a required step for a variety of proposed practical uses of quantum dynamics. We report an experimental demonstration of optical quantum state preparation in a semiconductor quantum dot with electrical readout, which contrasts with earlier work based on Rabi flopping in that the method is robust with respect to variation in the optical coupling. We use adiabatic rapid passage, which is capable of inverting single dots to a specified upper level. We demonstrate that when the pulse power exceeds a threshold for inversion, the final state is independent …
Time resolved intensity cross-correlation measurements of radiative cascades are used for studying non-radiative relaxation processes of excited carriers confined in semiconductor quantum dots. We spectrally identify indirect radiative cascades which include intermediate phonon assisted relaxations. The energy of the first photon reveals the multicarrier configuration prior to the non-radiative relaxation, while the energy of the second photon reveals the configuration after the relaxation. The intensity cross correlation measurements thus provide quantitative measures of the non-radiative pro…
We study the quantum-confined Stark effect in single InAs/GaAs quantum dots embedded within a AlGaAs/GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well. By significantly increasing the barrier height we can observe emission from a dot at electric fields of -500 kV/cm, leading to Stark shifts of up to 25 meV. Our results suggest this technique may enable future applications that require self-assembled dots with transitions at the same energy.
We consider the several phenomena which are taking place in Quantum Dots (QD) and Quantum Rings (QR): The connection of the Quantum Chaos (QC) with the reflection symmetry of the QD, Disappearance of the QC in the tunnel coupled chaotic QD, electron localization and transition between Double Concentric QR in the transverse magnetic field, transition of electron from QR to the QD located in the center of QR. Basis of this consideration is the effective Schrödinger equation for the corresponding systems.
We present a solid-state implementation of ultrafast conditional quantum gates. Our proposal for a quantum-computing device is based on the spin degrees of freedom of electrons confined in semiconductor quantum dots, thus benefiting from relatively long decoherence times. More specifically, combining Pauli blocking effects with properly tailored ultrafast laser pulses, we are able to obtain sub-picosecond spin-dependent switching of the Coulomb interaction, which is the essence of our conditional phase-gate proposal. This allows us to realize {\it a fast two qubit gate which does not translate…
We study electron-phonon interaction induced decoherence between two-electron singlet and triplet states in a semiconductor double quantum dot using a spin-boson model. We investigate the onset and time evolution of this dephasing, and study its dependence on quantum dot parameters such as dot size and double dot separations, as well as the host materials (GaAs and Si). At the short time limit, electron-phonon interaction only causes an incomplete initial Gaussian decay of the off-diagonal density matrix element in the singlet-triplet Hilbert space. A complete long-time exponential decay due t…
Optical techniques for the quantum control of the dynamics of multiexciton states in a semiconductor quantum dot are explored in theory. Composite bichromatic phase-locked pulses are shown to reduce the time of elementary quantum operations on excitons and biexcitons by an order of magnitude or more. Analytic and numerical methods of designing the pulse sequences are investigated. Fidelity of the operation is used to gauge its quality. A modified Quantum Fourier Transform algorithm is constructed with only Rabi rotations and is shown to reduce the number of operations. Application of the desig…
Adiabatic time evolution of degenerate eigenstates of a quantum system provides a means for controlling electronic states since mixing between degenerate levels generates a matrix Berry phase. In the presence of spin-orbit coupling in n-type semiconductor quantum dots the electron Hamiltonian is invariant under time reversal operation and the many body groundstate may be doubly degenerate. This double degeneracy can generate non-Abelian vector potentials when odd number of electrons are present. We find that the antisymmetry of many electron wavefunction has no effect on the matrix Berry phase…
Quantum scars are enhancements of quantum probability density along classical periodic orbits. We study the recently discovered phenomenon of strong, perturbation-induced quantum scarring in the two-dimensional harmonic oscillator exposed to a homogeneous magnetic field. We demonstrate that both the geometry and the orientation of the scars are fully controllable with a magnetic field and a focused perturbative potential, respectively. These properties may open a path into an experimental scheme to manipulate electric currents in nanostructures fabricated in a two-dimensional electron gas.
Tomographic analysis demonstrates that the polarization state of pairs of photons emitted from a biexciton decay cascade becomes entangled when spectral filtering is applied. The measured density matrix of the photon pair satisfies the Peres criterion for entanglement by more than 3 standard deviations of the experimental uncertainty and violates Bell's inequality. We show that the spectral filtering erases the ``which path'' information contained in the photons color and that the remanent information in the quantum dot degrees of freedom is negligible.
More than 80 years passed since the first publication on entangled quantum states. In this period of time the concept of spookily interacting quantum states became an emerging field of science. After various experiments proving the existence of such non-classical states, visionary ideas were put forward to exploit entanglement in quantum information science and technology. These novel concepts have not yet come out of the experimental stage, mostly because of the lack of suitable, deterministic sources of entangled quantum states. Among many systems under investigation, semiconductor quantum d…
We use temporally resolved intensity cross-correlation measurements to identify the biexciton-exciton radiative cascades in a negatively charged QD. The polarization sensitive correlation measurements show unambiguously that the excited two electron triplet states relax non-radiatively to their singlet ground state via a spin non conserving flip-flop with the ground state heavy hole. We explain this mechanism in terms of resonant coupling between the confined electron states and an LO phonon. This resonant interaction together with the electron-hole exchange interaction provides an efficient m…
This paper describes the modeling of quantum dots lasers with the aim of assessing the conditions for stable cw dual-mode operation when the mode separation lies in the THz range. Several possible models suited for InAs quantum dots in InP barriers are analytically evaluated, in particular quantum dots electrically coupled through a direct exchange of excitation by the wetting layer or quantum dots optically coupled through the homogeneous broadening of their optical gain. A stable dual-mode regime is shown possible in all cases when quantum dots are used as active layer whereas a gain medium …
Analytical solutions for a tight-binding model are presented for a position-based qubit and N interacting qubits realized by quasi-one-dimensional network of coupled quantum dots expressed by connected or disconnected graphs of any topology in 2 and 3 dimensions where one electron is presented at each separated graphs. Electron(s) quantum dynamic state is described under various electromagnetic circumstances with an omission spin degree-of-freedom. The action of Hadamard and phase rotating gate is given by analytical formulas derived and formulated for any case of physical field evolution pres…
Implementations for quantum computing require fast single- and multi-qubit quantum gate operations. In the case of optically controlled quantum dot qubits theoretical designs for long-range two- or multi-qubit operations satisfying all the requirements in quantum computing are not yet available. We have developed a design for a fast, long-range two-qubit gate mediated by a photonic microcavity mode using excited states of the quantum dot-cavity system that addresses these needs. This design does not require identical qubits, it is compatible with available optically induced single qubit operat…
We show that the g-factor and the spin-flip time T_{1} of a heterojunction quantum dot is very sensitive to the band-bending interface electric field even in the absence of wave function penetration into the barrier. When this electric field is of the order of 10^{5} V/cm, g and T_{1} show high sensitivity to dot radius and magnetic field arising from the interplay between Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit interactions. This result opens new possibilities for the design of a quantum dot spin quantum computer where g-factor and T_{1} can be engineered by manipulating the spin-orbit coupling thr…
Worldwide enormous efforts are directed towards the development of the so-called quantum internet. Turning this long sought-after dream into reality is a great challenge that will require breakthroughs in quantum communication and computing. To establish a global, quantum-secured communication infrastructure, photonic quantum technologies will doubtlessly play a major role, by providing and interfacing essential quantum resources, e.g., flying- and stationary qubits or quantum memories. Over the last decade, significant progress has been made in the engineering of on-demand quantum light sourc…
To improve mobility of fabricated silicon metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) quantum devices, forming gas annealing is a common method used to mitigate the effects of disorder at the Si/SiO2 interface. However, the importance of activation annealing is usually ignored. Here, we show that a high vacuum environment for implantation activation is beneficial for improving mobility compared to nitrogen atmosphere. Low-temperature transport measurements of Hall bars show that peak mobility can be improved by a factor of two, reaching 1.5 m^2/(Vs) using high vacuum annealing during implantation activati…
We present a numerically-optimized multipulse framework for the quantum control of a single-electron charge qubit. Our framework defines a set of pulse sequences, necessary for the manipulation of the ideal qubit basis, that avoids errors associated with excitations outside the computational subspace. A novel control scheme manipulates the qubit adiabatically, while also retaining high speed and ability to perform a general single-qubit rotation. This basis generates spatially localized logical qubit states, making readout straightforward. We consider experimentally realistic semiconductor qub…
We report the control of spontaneous emission from CdSe/ZnS core-shell quantum dots coupled to novel open-access optical microcavities. The cavities are fabricated by focused ion beam milling, and provide mode volumes less than a cubic micrometre. The quantum dot emission spectrum, spatial modes, and lifetime are all modified substantially by the presence of the cavity, and can be tuned by actively varying the cavity length. An increase in emission rate of 75% is achieved at room temperature, attributed to the Purcell effect in the 'bad emitter' regime. We demonstrate a high degree of control …
We analyze a prototypical particle-in-a-box model for a hole spin qubit. This quantum dot is subjected to static magnetic and electric fields, and to a radio-frequency electric field that drives Rabi oscillations owing to spin-orbit coupling. We derive the equations for the Rabi frequency in a regime where the Rabi oscillations mostly result from the coupling between the qubit states and a single nearby excited state. This regime has been shown to prevail in, e.g., hole spin qubits in thin silicon-on-insulator nanowires. The equations for the Rabi frequency highlight the parameters that contro…
State-of-the-art quantum key distribution systems are based on the BB84 protocol and single photons generated by lasers. These implementations suffer from range limitations and security loopholes, which require expensive adaptation. The use of polarization entangled photon pairs substantially alleviates the security threads while allowing for basically arbitrary transmission distances when embedded in quantum repeater schemes. Semiconductor quantum dots are capable of emitting highly entangled photon pairs with ultra-low multi-pair emission probability even at maximum brightness. Here we repor…
In this paper, we present a machine learning framework to design high-fidelity multi-qubit gates for quantum processors based on quantum dots in silicon, with qubits encoded in the spin of single electrons. In this hardware architecture, the control landscape is vast and complex, so we use the deep reinforcement learning method to design optimal control pulses to achieve high fidelity multi-qubit gates. In our learning model, a simulator models the physical system of quantum dots and performs the time evolution of the system, and a deep neural network serves as the function approximator to lea…
Long-term observations of photoluminescence at the single-molecule level were until recently very diffcult, due to the photobleaching of organic ?uorophore molecules. Although inorganic semiconductor nanocrystals can overcome this diffculty showing very low photobleaching yield, they suffer from photoblinking. A new marker has been recently introduced, relying on diamond nanoparticles containing photoluminescent color centers. In this work we compare the photoluminescence of single quantum dots (QDs) to the one of nanodiamonds containing a single-color center. Contrary to other markers, photol…
