Long-range radiative interaction between semiconductor quantum dots

TL;DR

This paper develops a Maxwell-Schroedinger formalism to describe long-range radiative interactions between semiconductor quantum dots, revealing collective modes influenced by distance and detuning, relevant for quantum information systems.

Contribution

It introduces a novel formalism combining Maxwell and Schroedinger equations to analyze radiative coupling in quantum dot ensembles, highlighting the importance of long-range interactions.

Findings

Collective modes depend on quantum dot separation and detuning.

Coupling range is approximately the wavelength of emitted light.

Radiative interactions significantly affect quantum dot behavior in integrated systems.

Abstract

We develop a Maxwell-Schroedinger formalism in order to describe the radiative interaction mechanism between semiconductor quantum dots. We solve the Maxwell equations for the electromagnetic field coupled to the polarization field of a quantum dot ensemble through a linear non-local susceptibility and compute the polariton resonances of the system. The radiative coupling, mediated by both radiative and surface photon modes, causes the emergence of collective modes whose lifetimes are longer or shorter compared to the ones of non-interacting dots. The magnitude of the coupling and the collective mode energies depend on the detuning and on the mutual quantum dot distance. The spatial range of this coupling mechanism is of the order of the wavelength. This coupling should therefore be accounted for when considering quantum dots as building blocks of integrated systems for quantum information processing.