Abstract

Photons may be considered ideal carriers of information as they can be transmitted over long distances with minimal decoherence. Additionally, they can be used to perform logic operations, and as qubits [1]. Semiconductor quantum dots are a popular choice for generating of single photons, as they demonstrate nearly perfectly indistinguishable photons and high internal quantum efficiency. Their coherence can also be improved through the use of micropillar cavities [2].

This talk discusses a semiconductor photon sorter [3]. It begins with a brief overview of the theory behind the concept, before considering the system itself. Here, a semiconductor quantum dot is weakly coupled to a micropillar cavity, and the nonlinearity of a transition is used to alter the counting statistics of a Poissonian beam. This allows photons to be sorted by number.

Reference: [1] Lee, J., Bennett, A., Stevenson, R., Ellis, D., Farrer, I., Ritchie, D. and Shields, A. (2018). Multi-dimensional photonic states from a quantum dot. Quantum Science and Technology, 3(2), p.024008. [2] Senellart, P., Solomon, G. and White, A. (2017). High-performance semiconductor quantum-dot single-photon sources. Nature Nanotechnology, 12(11), pp.1026-1039. [3] Bennett, A., Lee, J., Ellis, D., Farrer, I., Ritchie, D. and Shields, A. (2016). A semiconductor photon-sorter. Nature Nanotechnology, 11(10), pp.857-860.