Electrically driven quantum light emission in electromechanically-tuneable photonic crystal cavities

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates electrically driven quantum light emission from single quantum dots in a nano-electro-mechanically tunable photonic crystal cavity, enabling integrated, on-demand single-photon sources for quantum photonic circuits.

Contribution

It introduces a method for electrical injection and tuning of quantum dot emission within a reconfigurable photonic crystal cavity, overcoming previous optical pumping limitations.

Findings

Electrical injection of quantum dot lines achieved

Resonance with photonic modes enhances emission rate

Quantum nature confirmed by anti-bunching experiments

Abstract

A single quantum dot deterministically coupled to a photonic crystal environment constitutes an indispensable elementary unit to both generate and manipulate single-photons in next-generation quantum photonic circuits. To date, the scaling of the number of these quantum nodes on a fully-integrated chip has been prevented by the use of optical pumping strategies that require a bulky off-chip laser along with the lack of methods to control the energies of nano-cavities and emitters. Here, we concurrently overcome these limitations by demonstrating electrical injection of single excitonic lines within a nano-electro-mechanically tuneable photonic crystal cavity. When an electrically-driven dot line is brought into resonance with a photonic crystal mode, its emission rate is enhanced. Anti-bunching experiments reveal the quantum nature of these on-demand sources emitting in the telecom range. These results represent an important step forward in the realization of integrated quantum optics experiments featuring multiple electrically-triggered Purcell-enhanced single-photon sources embedded in a reconfigurable semiconductor architecture.