Picosecond laser pulses for quantum dot-microcavity based single photon generation by cascaded electro-optic modulation of a narrow-linewidth laser

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the generation of ultra-short, high-contrast picosecond laser pulses using cascaded electro-optic modulators, enabling resonant excitation of quantum dot microcavity single photon sources for scalable quantum photonics.

Contribution

It introduces a cascaded EOM approach to produce picosecond pulses with high contrast, advancing on-demand single photon generation technology.

Findings

Achieved 17 ps optical pulses with a single EOM.

Demonstrated high pulse contrast above 25 dB through temperature tuning.

Successfully resonantly excited a quantum dot-microcavity single photon source.

Abstract

Recent developments in integrated optics have made it possible to fabricate high-bandwidth electro-optic modulators (EOMs). Here we show cascaded operation of two of such modulators driven by custom-built electronics delivering on-demand picosecond pulses and application to a quantum dot cavity-QED single photon source. We implement an EOM-based correlation technique and demonstrate light pulses as short as 24$\pm$2 ps with a single EOM. The EOMs can be synchronized and operated in series, we then produce optical pulses down to 17 ps. To optimize the pulse contrast, we analyze for two different EOM devices the transmission as a function of EOM bias, wavelength and temperature, and we show that by temperature tuning and stabilization, a pulse contrast above 25 dB can be obtained at the targeted wavelength. With this high contrast we demonstrate resonant excitation of an InGaAs quantum dot - microcavity based single photon source, demonstrating a crucial technology for scalability and synchronization of large scale photonic quantum applications.