Reducing phonon-induced decoherence in solid-state single-photon sources with cavity quantum electrodynamics

• Published in: arXiv.org 2017-05
• Main Authors: Grange, Thomas, Somaschi, Niccolo, Antón, Carlos, Lorenzo De Santis, Coppola, Guillaume, Giesz, Valérian, Lemaître, Aristide, Sagnes, Isabelle, Auffèves, Alexia, Senellart, Pascale
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Emission analysis; Emitters; Phonons; Photons; Q factors; Quantum dots; Quantum electrodynamics; Quantum theory; Sidebands; Solid state
• ISSN: 2331-8422
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1612.03063

Solid-state emitters are excellent candidates for developing integrated sources of single photons. Yet, phonons degrade the photon indistinguishability both through pure dephasing of the zero-phonon line and through phonon-assisted emission. Here, we study theoretically and experimentally the indistinguishability of photons emitted by a semiconductor quantum dot in a microcavity as a function of temperature. We show that a large coupling to a high quality factor cavity can simultaneously reduce the effect of both phonon-induced sources of decoherence. It first limits the effect of pure dephasing on the zero phonon line with indistinguishabilities above \(97\%\) up to \(18\) K. Moreover, it efficiently redirects the phonon sidebands into the zero-phonon line and brings the indistinguishability of the full emission spectrum from \(87\%\) (resp. \(24\%\)) without cavity effect to more than \(99\%\) (resp. \(76\%\)) at \(0\) K (resp. \(20\) K). We provide guidelines for optimal cavity designs that further minimize the phonon-induced decoherence.