Spontaneous emission control of single quantum dots by electromechanical tuning of a photonic crystal cavity

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates real-time control of spontaneous emission in single quantum dots by electromechanically tuning a photonic crystal cavity, achieving significant emission enhancement without shifting exciton energies.

Contribution

It introduces a method for tuning photonic crystal cavities via electromechanical means to control quantum dot emission properties.

Findings

Achieved a 4.5-fold spontaneous emission enhancement.

Tuned the cavity over 13 nm without shifting exciton energies.

Real-time spectral alignment of cavity mode to quantum dot exciton line.

Abstract

We demonstrate the control of the spontaneous emission rate of single InAs quantum dots embedded in a double-membrane photonic crystal cavity by the electromechanical tuning of the cavity resonance. Controlling the separation between the two membranes with an electrostatic field we obtain the real-time spectral alignment of the cavity mode to the excitonic line and we observe an enhancement of the spontaneous emission rate at resonance. The cavity has been tuned over 13 nm without shifting the exciton energies. A spontaneous emission enhancement of 4.5 has been achieved with a coupling efficiency of the dot to the mode 92%.