Quantum Optics Laboratory

Title: Single-photon Emission from an Acoustically-driven Lateral Light-emitting Diode

Abstract:

Single-photon sources are essential building blocks in quantum photonic networks, where quantummechanical properties of photons are utilised to achieve quantum technologies such as quantum cryptography and quantum computing. Most conventional solid-state single-photon sources are based on single emitters such as self-assembled quantum dots, which are created at random locations and require spectral filtering. These issues hinder the integration of a single-photon source into a scaleable photonic quantum network for applications such as on-chip photonic quantum processors. In this work, using only regular lithography techniques on a conventional GaAs quantum well, we realise an electrically triggered single-photon source with a GHz repetition rate and without the need for spectral filtering. In this device, a single electron is carried in the potential minimum of a surface acoustic wave (SAW) and is transported to a region of holes to form an exciton. The exciton then decays and creates a single photon in a lifetime of ∼ 100 ps. This SAW-driven electroluminescence (EL) yields photon antibunching with the second-order correlation function g (2)(0) = 0.39 ± 0.05, which satisfies the common criterion for a single-photon source g (2)(0) < 0.5. Furthermore, we estimate that if a photon detector receives a SAW-driven EL signal within one SAW period, this signal has a 79%–90% chance of being a single photon. This work shows that a single-photon source can be made by combining single-electron transport and a lateral n-i-p junction. This approach makes it possible to create multiple synchronised single-photon sources at chosen positions with photon energy determined by quantum-well thickness. Compared with conventional quantum-dot-based single-photon sources, this device may be more suitable for an on-chip integrated photonic quantum network. On the other hand, our technique may also be used to convert an electron-spin state into a photonic state (flying qubit) to achieve a more scalabe quantum computing network. 

References 

P. Senellart,G. Solomon, and A. White. High-performance semiconductor quantum-dot single-photon sources. Nature Nanotechnology 12, 1026–1039 (2017). 

C. L. Foden, V. I. Talyanskii, G. J. Milburn, M. L. Leadbeater, and M. Pepper, High-frequency acoustoelectric single-photon source. Physical Review A 62, 011803 (2000) 

C. J. B. Ford, Transporting and manipulating single electrons in surface-acoustic-wave minima. Physica Status Solidi (B) Basic Research 254, 1600658 (2017) 

T.-K. Hsiao, A. Rubino, Y. Chung, S.-K. Son, H. Hou, J. Pedr´os, A. Nasir, G. Ethier-Majcher, M. J. Stanley, ´ R. T. Phillips, T. A. Mitchell, J. P. Griffiths, I. Farrer, D. A. Ritchie, and C. J. B. Ford, Single-photon Emission from an Acoustically-driven Lateral Light-emitting Diode. Under review. Preprint arXiv:1901.03464