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Impact of acoustic phonons on biexciton preparation using shortcuts to adiabaticity

Sutirtha Biswas*, Dionisis Stefanatos†, and Emmanuel Paspalakis‡

  • Materials Science Department, School of Natural Sciences, University of Patras, Patras 26504, Greece

  • *Contact author: sutibisw@ee.duth.gr
  • †Contact author: dionisis@post.harvard.edu
  • ‡Contact author: paspalak@upatras.gr
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Phys. Rev. A 114, 022622 – Published 26 August, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/d9rf-stsx

Abstract

We investigate the impact of acoustic phonons on biexciton preparation in an InGaAs/GaAs semiconductor quantum dot driven by laser pulses designed using shortcuts to adiabaticity (STA). The electronic dynamics is calculated with the time-evolving matrix product operator (TEMPO) algorithm, which provides a nonperturbative treatment of the memory effects generated by the acoustic phonon bath. The calculations use a spectral-density parameter set corresponding to very strong coupling to longitudinal acoustic phonons and a high cutoff associated with strongly confined carriers in a small quantum dot. For subpicosecond control, the STA pulses produce near-complete ground-to-biexciton transfer over a broad range of temperatures and biexciton binding energies. For longer pulses, the final biexciton population decreases because the phonon bath has more time to react to the driven charge dynamics, with stronger degradation at higher temperatures and larger binding energies. We compare the STA protocol with reference schemes including constant pulses, on-off-on pulse sequences, rapid adiabatic passage, and a hybrid acousto-optical swing-up method. We also quantify the sensitivity of the preparation to two-photon detuning and multiplicative amplitude noise. Finally, we benchmark the TEMPO simulations against a second-order perturbative evaluation of the Nakajima-Zwanzig memory kernel, finding close agreement for ultrafast pulses and visible deviations for longer durations and higher temperatures. The results identify the regimes in which STA pulses remain efficient for biexciton preparation in quantum dots subject to acoustic phonon decoherence.

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Phys. Rev. A 114, 022622– Published 26 August, 2026
  • Received 20 February 2026
  • Revised 13 June 2026
  • Accepted 13 August 2026
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