Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Controlling cavity reflectivity with a single quantum dot

Nature volume 450, pages 857–861 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

Solid-state cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) systems offer a robust and scalable platform for quantum optics experiments and the development of quantum information processing devices. In particular, systems based on photonic crystal nanocavities and semiconductor quantum dots have seen rapid progress. Recent experiments have allowed the observation of weak1 and strong coupling2,3 regimes of interaction between the photonic crystal cavity and a single quantum dot in photoluminescence. In the weak coupling regime1, the quantum dot radiative lifetime is modified; in the strong coupling regime3, the coupled quantum dot also modifies the cavity spectrum. Several proposals for scalable quantum information networks and quantum computation rely on direct probing of the cavity–quantum dot coupling, by means of resonant light scattering from strongly or weakly coupled quantum dots4,5,6,7,8,9. Such experiments have recently been performed in atomic systems10,11,12 and superconducting circuit QED systems13, but not in solid-state quantum dot–cavity QED systems. Here we present experimental evidence that this interaction can be probed in solid-state systems, and show that, as expected from theory, the quantum dot strongly modifies the cavity transmission and reflection spectra. We show that when the quantum dot is coupled to the cavity, photons that are resonant with its transition are prohibited from entering the cavity. We observe this effect as the quantum dot is tuned through the cavity and the coupling strength between them changes. At high intensity of the probe beam, we observe rapid saturation of the transmission dip. These measurements provide both a method for probing the cavity–quantum dot system and a step towards the realization of quantum devices based on coherent light scattering and large optical nonlinearities from quantum dots in photonic crystal cavities.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Experiment set-up.
Figure 2: Photoluminescence of a single quantum dot tuned through strong coupling to a photonic crystal cavity.
Figure 3: Quantum dot–controlled cavity reflectivity at different probe wavelengths A–E, as indicated in Fig. 2b .
Figure 4: Quantum-dot-controlled cavity reflectivity versus probe beam power for probe laser detuning of Δ λ = -0.012 nm from the anticrossing point.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Englund, D. et al. Controlling the spontaneous emission rate of single quantum dots in a two-dimensional photonic crystal. Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 013904 (2005)

    Article  ADS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Yoshie, T. et al. Vacuum Rabi splitting with a single quantum dot in a photonic crystal nanocavity. Nature 432, 200–203 (2004)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Hennessy, K. et al. Quantum nature of a strongly coupled single quantum dot-cavity system. Nature 445, 896–899 (2007)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Cirac, J. I., Zoller, P., Kimble, H. J. & Mabuchi, H. Quantum state transfer and entanglement distribution among distant nodes in a quantum network. Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 3221–3224 (1997)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Imamoglu, A. et al. Quantum information processing using quantum dot spins and cavity QED. Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 4204–4207 (1999)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Duan, L. M. & Kimble, H. J. Scalable photonic quantum computation through cavity-assisted interactions. Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 127902 (2004)

    Article  ADS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Childress, L., Taylor, J. M., Sorensen, A. S. & Lukin, M. D. Fault-tolerant quantum repeaters with minimal physical resources and implementations based on single-photon emitters. Phys. Rev. A 72, 052330 (2005)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  8. Waks, E. & Vučković, J. Dipole induced transparency in drop-filter cavity-waveguide systems. Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 153601 (2006)

    Article  ADS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Ladd, T. D., van Loock, P. K., Nemoto, K., Munro, W. J. & Yamamoto, Y. Hybrid quantum repeater based on dispersive CQED interactions between matter qubits and bright coherent light. N. J. Phys. 8, 184 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Birnbaum, K. M. et al. Photon blockade in an optical cavity with one trapped atom. Nature 436, 87–90 (2005)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Rauschenbeutel, A. et al. Coherent operation of a tunable quantum phase gate in cavity QED. Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 5166–5169 (1999)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Nogues, G. et al. Seeing a single photon without destroying it. Nature 400, 239–242 (1999)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Schuster, D. I. et al. Resolving photon number states in a superconducting circuit. Nature 445, 515–518 (2007)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Kimble, H. J. in Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics (ed. Berman, P.) 213–219 (Academic, San Diego, 1994)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Akahane, Y., Asano, T., Song, B.-S. & Noda, S. High-Q photonic nanocavity in a two-dimensional photonic crystal. Nature 425, 944–947 (2003)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Faraon, A. et al. Local quantum dot tuning on photonic crystal chips. Appl. Phys. Lett. 90, 213110 (2007)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  17. Gerardot, B. D. et al. Contrast in transmission spectroscopy of a single quantum dot. Appl. Phys. Lett. 90, 221106 (2007)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  18. Tan, S. M. A computational toolbox for quantum and atomic physics. J. Opt. B 1, 424–432 (1999)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Hood, C. J., Chapman, M. S., Lynn, T. W. & Kimble, H. J. Real-time cavity QED with single atoms. Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 4157–4160 (1998)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Auffeves-Garnier, A., Simon, C., Gerard, J. M. & Poizat, J.-P. Giant optical nonlinearity induced by a single two-level system interacting with a cavity in the Purcell regime. Phys. Rev. A 75, 053823 (2007)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  21. Englund, D., Faraon, A., Zhang, B., Yamamoto, Y. & Vučković, J. Generation and transfer of single photons on a photonic crystal chip. Opt. Express 15, 5550–5558 (2007)

    Article  ADS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  22. Faraon, A., Waks, E., Englund, D., Fushman, I. & Vučković, J. Efficient photonic crystal cavity-waveguide couplers. Appl. Phys. Lett. 90, 073102 (2007)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  23. Reiner, J. E., Smith, W. P., Orozco, L. A., Carmichael, H. J. & Rice, P. R. Time evolution and squeezing of the field amplitude in cavity QED. J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 18, 1911–1921 (2001)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Imoto, N., Haus, H. A. & Yamamoto, Y. Quantum nondemolition measurement of the photon number via the optical Kerr effect. Phys. Rev. A 32, 2287–2292 (1985)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. Vučković, J., Englund, D., Fattal, D., Waks, E. & Yamamoto, Y. Generation and manipulation of nonclassical light using photonic crystals. Physica E 32, 466–470 (2006)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

Financial support was provided by the ONR Young Investigator Award, the MURI Center for photonic quantum information systems (ARO/DTO Program), the Okawa Foundation Faculty Research Grant, and the CIS Seed fund. D.E. and I.F. were also supported by the NDSEG fellowship. Work was performed in part at the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility of NNIN supported by the National Science Foundation.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Dirk Englund, Andrei Faraon and Ilya Fushman: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ginzton Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA ,

    Dirk Englund, Andrei Faraon, Ilya Fushman & Jelena Vučković

  2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA,

    Nick Stoltz & Pierre Petroff

Authors
  1. Dirk Englund
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Andrei Faraon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Ilya Fushman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Nick Stoltz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Pierre Petroff
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Jelena Vučković
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jelena Vučković.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Englund, D., Faraon, A., Fushman, I. et al. Controlling cavity reflectivity with a single quantum dot. Nature 450, 857–861 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature06234

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature06234

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing