On-Demand Single Photons with High Extraction Efficiency and Near-Unity Indistinguishability from a Resonantly Driven Quantum Dot in a Micropillar

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a quantum dot-based single-photon source that achieves high efficiency, near-perfect purity, and indistinguishability simultaneously, advancing scalable photonic quantum technologies.

Contribution

It introduces a resonantly driven quantum dot-micropillar system that combines high extraction efficiency with near-unity photon indistinguishability and purity, previously demonstrated separately.

Findings

Extraction efficiency of 66% at pi pulse excitation

Single-photon purity of 99.1%

Photon indistinguishability of 98.5%

Abstract

Scalable photonic quantum technologies require on-demand single-photon sources with simultaneously high levels of purity, indistinguishability, and efficiency. These key features, however, have only been demonstrated separately in previous experiments. Here, by s-shell pulsed resonant excitation of a Purcell-enhanced quantum dot-micropillar system, we deterministically generate resonance fluorescence single photons which, at pi pulse excitation, have an extraction efficiency of 66%, single-photon purity of 99.1%, and photon indistinguishability of 98.5%. Such a single-photon source for the first time combines the features of high efficiency and near-perfect levels of purity and indistinguishabilty, and thus open the way to multi-photon experiments with semiconductor quantum dots.