Nanoscale optical positioning of single quantum dots for bright and pure single-photon emission

Sapienza, L., Davanço, M., Badolato, A. and Srinivasan, K. (2015) Nanoscale optical positioning of single quantum dots for bright and pure single-photon emission. Nature Communications, 6, 7833. (doi: 10.1038/ncomms8833) (PMID:26211442) (PMCID:PMC4525159)

Abstract

Self-assembled, epitaxially grown InAs/GaAs quantum dots (QDs) are promising semiconductor quantum emitters that can be integrated on a chip for a variety of photonic quantum information science applications. However, self-assembled growth results in an essentially random in-plane spatial distribution of QDs, presenting a challenge in creating devices that exploit the strong interaction of single QDs with highly confined optical modes. Here, we present a photoluminescence imaging approach for locating single QDs with respect to alignment features with an average position uncertainty <30 nm (<10 nm when using a solid-immersion lens), which represents an enabling technology for the creation of optimized single QD devices. To that end, we create QD single-photon sources, based on a circular Bragg grating geometry, that simultaneously exhibit high collection efficiency (48%±5% into a 0.4 numerical aperture lens, close to the theoretically predicted value of 50%), low multiphoton probability (g(2)(0) <1%), and a significant Purcell enhancement factor (≈3).

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: L.S. acknowledges support under the Cooperative Research Agreement between the University of Maryland and NIST-CNST, Award 70NANB10H193. A.B. acknowledges support from National Science Foundation (NSF) under CAREER Grant No. ECCS-1454021 and Grant No. DMR- 1309734.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Sapienza, Dr Luca and Badolato, Professor Antonio
• Authors: Sapienza, L., Davanço, M., Badolato, A., and Srinivasan, K.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Electronics and Nanoscale Engineering
• Journal Name: Nature Communications
• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
• ISSN: 2041-1723
• ISSN (Online): 2041-1723
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2015 Macmillan Publishers Limited
• First Published: First published in Nature Communications 6(1):7833
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License