Temperature dependent single photon emission in InP/GaInP quantum dots

Intensity correlation measurements on single InP/GaInP quantum dots (QDs) show antibunching at zero delay time, indicative of single photon emission. The antibunching time τ_R increases or decreases with temperature depending on the QD size as a result of the competition between: (1) thermal excitation of holes dominant in smaller QDs and (2) dark-to-bright exciton transition dominant in larger QDs. The antibunching minimum g⁽²⁾(0) remains below 0.2 up to 45 K.     

Interferometric spectroscopy for excitons in InP single quantum dots

Dynamical dephasing processes of an exciton and a charged exciton in single InP quantum dots were studied by using interferometric spectroscopy. Interferometric spectroscopy enabled us to observe with high sensitivity the dephasing of exciton or other exciton complexes in single quantum dots. In order to observe the dephasing of the exciton or exciton complexes, emitted single-photons generated from single InP quantum dots were detected through the Michelson interferometer. The contrast of the interferometric signal due to the exciton and the charged exciton shows non-exponential decay under band-to-band excitation for the GaInP matrix. The band-to-band excitation generates carriers trapped in the matrix and the trapped carriers modulate the energy of the quantum dots because of the quantum-confined Stark effect. Therefore the non-exponential decays are caused by energy fluctuation due to the trap carriers in the long timescale.     

Near field scanning optical spectroscopy of InP single quantum dots

We study InP quantum dots which are prepared by strain induced self-assembly on GaAs substrates with a GaInP buffer layer using a near field scanning optical microscope operating at near liquid He bath temperatures in the collection mode. Single quantum dots are identified spatially and spectrally due to their photoluminescence spectrum. Series of luminescence lines due to single dots of different sizes are discussed in terms of dot height and width fluctuations. Pis’ma Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 66, No. 7, 497–501 (10 October 1997)     

Time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy of InAs quantum dots on InP with various InAlGaAs barrier thicknesses

The Optical characteristics of InAs quantum dots (QDs) embeded in InAlGaAs on InP have been investigated by photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy and time-resolved PL. Four different QD samples are grown by using molecular beam epitaxy, and all the QD samples have five-stacked InAs quantum dot layers with a different InAlGaAs barrier thickness. The PL yield from InAs QDs was increased with an increase in the thickness of the InAlGaAs barrier, and the emission peak positions of all InAs QD samples were measured around 1.5 μm at room temperature. The decay time of the carrier in InAs QDs is decreased abruptly in the QD sample with the 5 nm InAlGaAs barrier. This feature is explained by the tunneling and coupling effect in the vertical direction and probably defect generation.     

Influence of strain on the magneto-exciton in single and coupled InP/GaInP quantum disks

We investigated theoretically the influence of strain on the exciton in both single and three vertically coupled self-assembled quantum dot systems in the presence of a perpendicular magnetic field. For the single disk, we find that the heavy-hole exciton is the ground state, while for the system of three stacked disks, the light hole state was found to be lower in energy. Results for the diamagnetic shift were compared with experimental results.     

Anomalous temperature dependence of photoluminescence peak energy in InAs/InAlAs/InP quantum dots

We have observed an unusual temperature sensitivity of the photoluminescence (PL) peak energy for InAs quantum dots grown on InAs quantum wires (QDOWs) on InP substrate. The net temperature shift of PL wavelength of the QDOWs ranges from 0.8 to −4 Å/°C depending upon the Si doping concentration in the samples. This unusual temperature behavior can be mainly ascribed to the stress amplification in the QDOWs when the thermal strain is transferred from the surrounding InAs wires. This offers an opportunity for realizing quantum dot laser devices with a temperature insensitive lasing wavelength.     

Redox-mediated reversible modulation of the photoluminescence of single quantum dots

Precise control over the photoluminescence(PL) of single quantum dots(QDs) is important for their practical applications. We show that the PL of individual Cd Se/Zn S core/shell QDs can be effectively enhanced and continuously modulated by electrochemically manipulating the electron transfer(ET) between the QDs and the attached redox-active ligands such as 2-mercaptoethanol(BME). We found that i) the ET from BME to the QDs' surface trap states suppresses the blinking of the QDs, ii) the ET from the QDs' conduction band to the oxidization product results in dimmed PL when BME is oxidized,and iii) further oxidization of BME results in a significant PL brightening. The single particle measurements help us unveil the important features hidden in ensemble measurements and understand the underlying mechanism of the PL modulation.The results also suggest a simple yet efficient method to produce bright and non-blinking QDs and offer opportunities for further development of high resolution fluorescent bioimaging and nanodevices.     

Knight-field-enabled nuclear spin polarization in single quantum dots

We demonstrate dynamical nuclear-spin polarization in the absence of an external magnetic field by resonant circularly polarized optical excitation of a single electron or hole charged quantum dot. Optical pumping of the electron spin induces an effective inhomogeneous magnetic (Knight) field that determines the direction along which nuclear spins could polarize and enables nuclear-spin cooling by suppressing depolarization induced by nuclear dipole-dipole interactions. Our experiments constitute a first step towards a quantum measurement of the Overhauser field.     

Electronic structure of the p-shell in single, site-selected InAs/InP quantum dots

The spectroscopy of single InAs/InP quantum dots emitting close to 1.55 μm is described. The dots are produced using a nanotemplate deposition technique that allows precise, a priori control of quantum dot position and electronic configuration. The experimentally observed luminescence signal from the p-shell is composed of several lines. Using exact diagonalization calculations of the emission spectra we interpret the splittings between these lines in terms of Coulomb induced, many-body renormalization of the excitonic states and a template-induced shape asymmetry of the quantum dot.     

Influence of strain on the Stark effect in InP/GaInP quantum discs

In InP/GaInP quantum discs it is shown that strain induces a type I to type II transition with increasing thickness of the disc. When an external electric field is applied along the cylindrical axis of the disc, the exciton energy exhibits a Stark effect, which for the light hole exciton becomes linear even for a small field value, while for the heavy hole it is more quadratic.     

Absorption spectroscopy of single InAs self-assembled quantum dots

Excitonic transitions of single InAs self-assembled quantum dots were directly measured at 4.2 K in an optical transmission experiment. We use the Stark effect in order to tune the exciton energy of a single quantum dot into resonance with a narrow-band laser. With this method, sharp resonances in the transmission spectra are observed. The oscillator strengths as well as the homogeneous line widths of the single-dot optical transitions are obtained. A clear saturation in the absorption is observed at modest laser powers.     

Coherent spin precession of electrons and excitons in charge tunable InP quantum dots

Coherent spin precession of electrons and excitons is observed in charge tunable InP quantum dots under the transverse magnetic field by means of time-resolved Kerr rotation. In a quantum dot doped by one electron, spin precession of the doped electron in the quantum dot starts out of phase with spin precession of the doped electrons in a GaAs substrate just after a trion is formed and persists for more than 2 ns even after the trion recombines. Simultaneously spin precession of a trion (hole) starts. Observation of spin precession of both a doped electron and a trion (hole) confirms creating coherent superposition of an electron and a trion as the initialization process of spin of doped electrons in quantum dots. In a neutral quantum dot, the exciton spin precession starts out of phase with spin precession of the doped electrons in a GaAs substrate and the precession frequency does not converge to 0 at the zero field limit. It contains the electron–hole exchange interaction and corresponds to the splitting between bright and dark excitons under the transverse magnetic field.     

Tunneling measurement of a single quantum spin

Measurement of the tunneling current of spin-polarized electrons via a molecule with a localized spin provides information on the orientation of that spin. We show that a strong tunneling current due to the shot noise suppresses the spin dynamics, such as the spin precession in an external magnetic field, and the relaxation due to the environment (quantum Zeno effect). A weak tunneling current preserves the spin precession with the oscillatory component of the current of the same order as the noise. We propose an experiment to observe the Zeno effect in a tunneling system and describe how the tunneling current may be used to read a qubit represented by a single spin 1/2.     

Spin–spin interaction in magnetic semiconductor quantum dots

Self-assembled Cd(Mn)Se/Zn(Mn)Se quantum dots have been investigated by means of spatially and time-resolved magneto-optical spectroscopy. In such quasi zero-dimensional diluted magnetic semiconductors, the exchange interaction couples the spins of optically generated charge carriers with localized magnetic ion spins. We demonstrate that this can be used on the one hand to monitor nanoscale magnetization with a resolution of <100 μ_B by a purely optical technique and on the other hand to optically manipulate the magnetization in a semiconductor quantum dot.     

Optical spectroscopy of single InAs/InP quantum dots around λ=1.55 μm

We discuss the preparation and spectroscopic characterisation of a single InAs/InP quantum dot suitable for long-distance quantum key distribution applications around λ=1.55 μm. The dot is prepared using a site-selective growth technique which allows a single dot to be deposited in isolation at a controlled spatial location. Micro-photoluminescence measurements as a function of exciton occupation are used to determine the electronic structure of the dot. Biexciton emission, shell filling and many-body re-normalization effects are observed for the first time in single InAs/InP quantum dots.     

Fabrication of highly luminescent InP/Cd and InP/CdS quantum dots

Highly luminescent InP/Cd and InP/CdS core-shell QDs were fabricated by sequential addition of cadmium acetylacetonate and dodecanethiol to InP core solutions, which showed a red-shift in absorption and emission. ICP measurement revealed the existence of cadmium and TEM images showed the increased size of InP/CdS QDs. PXRD data identified zinc blend structures of InP and InP/CdS QDs, which indexed to the (1 1 1), (2 2 0) and (3 1 1) planes. The slight shift of peaks between InP and InP/CdS QDs can demonstrate the existence of CdS shell structures.     

Carrier dynamics in strain-induced InGaAsP/InP quantum dots

Carrier dynamics of strain-induced InGaAsP/InP quantum dots (QDs) is investigated. In this structure, self-assembled InAs islands on the surface act as stressors and create a lateral confinement potential in the near surface InGaAsP/InP quantum well. Photoluminescence (PL) measurements reveal that decreasing the distance from the QD to the surface significantly diminishes the QD–PL intensity, presumably due to surface states of the InAs islands. Moreover, time-resolved measurements show a faster decay of the QD–PL with decreasing distance. To analyze the carrier dynamics, rate equation model is applied and surface state-related transitions are taken into account. The model is found to agree with measurements, and thus provides a possible explanation for the observed temporal behavior of the carriers.     

Tunneling-induced dephasing in InP quantum dots

We observed the tunneling process of photo-excited holes in neutral InP quantum dots and Pauli blocking of charged InP quantum dots. A highly sensitive heterodyne-detected photon echo method enabled us to observe the signal from one layer of self-assembled InP quantum dots under the electric field. The electric field could control the charging or neutralization of the InP quantum dots and hence the photon echo signal decreased considerably with the increase of electron doping. The photon echo of neutral InP quantum dots under the electric field showed tunneling-induced dephasing, which decays non-exponentially reflecting the non-Markovian nature of the tunneling process.     

Observation of many-body Coulomb interaction effects on the photoluminescence spectra of InAs/GaAs quantum dots

InAs quantum dots (QDs) on GaAs (0 0 1) substrates were grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) using two growth temperatures. Photoluminescence (PL) pump power dependence measurements at low temperature were carried out for sample grown at higher temperature (520 °C). With increasing excitation density, the ground-state transition energy is found to decrease by 8 meV, while the excited-state transition energies exhibit resonance behaviour. The redshift of the ground-state emission was related to the band-gap renomalization (BGR) effect whereas the blueshift of the excited-state emissions was assigned to the compensation between filling of fine structure states and BGR effects. Using a quasi-resonant PL measurement, we have shown that the renormalization of the band-gap had to occur in the QD barrier.     

Magneto-optical single dot spectroscopy of GaSb/GaAs type II quantum dots

We have investigated magneto-optical properties of GaSb/GaAs self-assemble type II quantum dots by single dot spectroscopy in magnetic field. We have observed clear Zeeman splitting and diamagnetic shift of GaSb/GaAs quantum dots. The diamagnetic coefficient ranges from 5 to 30 μeV/T². The large coefficient and their large distribution are attributed to the size inhomogeneity and electron localization outside the dot. The g-factor of GaSb/GaAs quantum dots is slightly larger than that of similar type I InGaAs/GaAs quantum dots. In addition, we find almost linear relationship between the diamagnetic coefficient and the g-factor. The linear increase of g-factor with diamagnetic coefficient is due to an increase of spin-orbit interaction with dot size.