The crux of using the cascaded emission of a 3-level quantum ladder system to generate indistinguishable photons

• We investigate the degree of indistinguishability of cascaded photons emitted from a 3–level quantum ladder system; in our case the biexciton–exciton cascade of semiconductor quantum dots. For the 3–level quantum ladder system we theoretically demonstrate that the indistinguishability is inherently limited for both emitted photons and determined by the ratio of the lifetimes of the excited and intermediate states. We experimentally confirm this finding by comparing the quantum interference visibility of non–cascaded emission and cascaded emission from the same semiconductor quantum dot. Quantum optical simulations produce very good agreement with the measurements and allow to explore a large parameter space. Based on our model, we propose photonic structures too ptimize the lifetime ratio and overcome the limited indistinguishability of cascaded photon emission from a 3–level quantum ladder system.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik -- Den kondenserade materiens fysik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences -- Condensed Matter Physics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Optik och fotonik

Optics and Photonics

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

ovr (subject category)