Generation and Detection of Single Photons and Photon Pairs

June 14, 2000

Co-PI: Prof. Yoshihisa Yamamoto Past researchers: Jungsang Kim, Oliver Benson Current researchers: Charles Santori, Edo Waks, Matthew Pelton

Contents
Original solid-state single photon generation device VLPC high-efficiency solid-state photon counter New proposal for generation of single photons and single pairs of entangled photons

Single Photon Turnstile Device

A. Imamoglu and Y.Yamamoto, Phys. Rev. Lett. 72, 210 (1994)
Operation Principle electron p n hole V ( t ) = Vo electron p n hole V ( t ) = Vo + V Resonant Tunneling Rates Resonant Tunneling Rates
2.40 2.00

e/2C
1.60 1.20 0.80 0.40 0.00 1.984

1.987

1.99

1.993

1.996

Vo

Vo + V

Junction Voltage (V)

Device Fabrication
PMMA

1
Bi-layer PMMA E-beam Lithography

2
Metal Deposition Standard Lift-off

3
Highly Directional Reactive Ion Etching

4
Sulfur Passivation SiN Encapsulation

5
Planarization with Polyimide, Depostion of Contact Pads

First Demonstration
J. Kim, O. Benson, H. Kan & Y. Yamamoto, Nature 397, 500 (1999)
100

Evidence for success: Emitted photon histogram shows expected behavior; Frequency-dependent current. Areas for improvement: Temperature (50mK), Recombination rate (25 nsec), Collection efficiency (10-4).

80

Counts

60 40 20 0 0 20 40 60

h ph
80 100

Time (ns)
6 10-19 5 10-19

3e 2e 1e 0e
Bias Voltage (V)

dI / d (C)

4 10-19 3 10-19 2 10-19 1 10-19 0

-1 10-19 1.54 1.542 1.544 1.546 1.548 1.55 1.552

Principle of Operation

The VLPC Detector

Photon Flux

Impact ionization of As doped

impurities in Si (En ~ 54meV) Impurity band conduction (through conduction hopping at low temp.) Single carrier photomultiplication +V

Transparent Contact Intrinsic Region As Doped Gain Region Back Contact

Advantages of VLPC e h
e D+ Quantum Efficiency ~ 90%

Avalanche gain ~ 30,000 Pulse duration ~ 1nsec Two photon detection capability

Disadvantages of VLPC
High dark counts ~ 20,000/s at peak QE Difficult to use 6 Kelvin operation temp. Highly sensitive to room temp. IR photons

VLPC Properties
J. Kim, Y. Yamamoto and H. Hogue, APL 70, 2852 (1997) J. Kim, S. Takeuchi, Y.Yamamoto, H. Hogue, APL 74, 902 (1999) Two photon detection capability
0.4

Improved noise properties:

Single Photon Signal

0.3

5 ns Delay

Voltage (V)

0.2

3 ns Delay

0.1

0 ns Delay
0

-10

10

20

30

Time (ns)

Quantum-Dot Turnstile Device

Advantages of QD over QW:
Larger Coulomb blockade energy (20meV) allows for higher temperatures. Quantum confinement, combined with Pauli exclusion, allows for new modes of operation. 1nsec recombination lifetime.

DBR h+ eDBR

High- DBR cavity:

Collection efficiency near unity is possible. Enhanced spontaneous emission.

photon

QD Entangled Photon Generator?

O. Benson, C. Santori, M. Pelton, Y. Yamamoto, PRL 84, 2513 (2000)

Angular momentum is transferred from electron-hole pairs to photon polarization in recombination events (selection rules). There are two paths for the dot to radiatively decay to the ground (empty) state. If no information remains in the dot as to which path was chosen, => Entangled photon pair! Requirement: Spin dephasing slower than recombination rate.

2e- + 2h+

LCP

RCP

RCP empty
1 2

LCP

[ RL

1 2

+ L1 R2

Optically Pumped Regulated Photon Source

e2+h2 e1+h1 pulse excitation empty dot antibunched emitted photons phonon relaxation

Coherent, pulsed excitation of the single-exciton e2-h2 state, followed by phonon relaxation, can be used to generate a single lower-energy photon for each pulse. Coherent, pulsed excitation of the bi-exciton e2-h2 state (this is possible if the pulse bandwidth exceeds the bi-excitionic energy shift) can be used to generate pairs of photons. If the recombination rate exceeds the spindephasing rate, then polarization-entangled photon pairs can be produced.

Summary
We have demonstrated a solid-state source of regulated, single photons. We have a solid-state photon-counting system with a quantum efficiency approaching 95% and multiple-photon counting ability. We are developing an improved single-photon device based on a quantum dot, which might also be able to generate entangled photon pairs.