Probing different regimes of strong field light-matter interaction with semiconductor quantum dots and few cavity photons

• Published in: New journal of physics 2016-12, Vol.18 (12), p.123031
• Main Authors: Hargart, F, Roy-Choudhury, K, John, T, Portalupi, S L, Schneider, C, Höfling, S, Kamp, M, Hughes, S, Michler, P
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 42.50.Hz; 78.67.Hc; AC Stark effect; dressed states; Electric fields; Excitons; light-matter interaction; Photons; Physics; Quantum dots; Stark effect; Strong interactions (field theory)
• ISSN: 1367-2630; 1367-2630
• DOI: 10.1088/1367-2630/aa5198

In this work we present an extensive experimental and theoretical investigation of different regimes of strong field light-matter interaction for cavity-driven quantum dot (QD) cavity systems. The electric field enhancement inside a high-Q micropillar cavity facilitates exceptionally strong interaction with few cavity photons, enabling the simultaneous investigation for a wide range of QD-laser detuning. In case of a resonant drive, the formation of dressed states and a Mollow triplet sideband splitting of up to 45 eV is measured for a mean cavity photon number 〈 n c 〉 ≤ 1 . In the asymptotic limit of the linear AC Stark effect we systematically investigate the power and detuning dependence of more than 400 QDs. Some QD-cavity systems exhibit an unexpected anomalous Stark shift, which can be explained by an extended dressed 4-level QD model. We provide a detailed analysis of the QD-cavity systems properties enabling this novel effect. The experimental results are successfully reproduced using a polaron master equation approach for the QD-cavity system, which includes the driving laser field, exciton-cavity and exciton-phonon interactions.