Single quantum dot selection and tailor-made photonic device integration using nanoscale focus pinspot

TL;DR

This paper introduces a nondestructive nanoscale focus pinspot method using helium ion microscopy to select single quantum dots and integrate them with photonic devices, significantly improving emission efficiency without damaging the medium.

Contribution

The study presents a novel, nondestructive technique for selecting and integrating single quantum dots with photonic structures, enhancing emission efficiency and enabling scalable quantum photonic device fabrication.

Findings

Achieved 27-fold increase in QD emission extraction efficiency.

Successfully selected single QDs from high-density ensembles.

Demonstrated deterministic integration with photonic structures.

Abstract

Among the diverse platforms of quantum light sources, epitaxially grown semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) are one of the most attractive workhorses for realizing various quantum photonic technologies owing to their outstanding brightness and scalability. There exist various material systems for these QDs based on their appropriate emission bandwidth; however, only a few material systems have successfully grown single or low-density QDs, which are essential for quantum light sources. In most other material systems, it is difficult to realize low-density QDs, and the mesa-etching process is usually undergone in order to reduce their density. Nevertheless, the etching process irreversibly destroys the medium near the QD, which is detrimental to in-plane device integration. In this study, we apply a nondestructive luminescence picking method termed as nanoscale focus pinspot (NFP) using helium ion microscopy to reduce the luminous QD density while retaining the surrounding medium. Given that the NFP can precisely manipulate the luminescence at nanoscale resolution, a photonic device can be deterministically fabricated on the target QD matched from both spatial and spectral points of view. After applying the NFP, we extract only a single QD emission out of the high-density ensemble QD emission. Moreover, the photonic structure of a circular Bragg reflector is deterministically integrated with the selected QD, and the extraction efficiency of the QD emission has been improved 27 times. Furthermore, this technique does not destroy the medium and only controls the luminescence. Hence, it is highly applicable to various photonic structures, including photonic waveguides or photonic crystal cavities regardless of their materials.