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Influence of Electron–Acoustic-Phonon Scattering on Intensity Power Broadening in a Coherently Driven Quantum-Dot–Cavity System

C. Roy* and S. Hughes†

  • Department of Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 3N6

  • *chiranjeeb.roy@queensu.ca
  • †shughes@physics.queensu.ca
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Phys. Rev. X 1, 021009 – Published 15 November, 2011

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.1.021009

Abstract

We present a quantum optics formalism to study the intensity power broadening of a semiconductor quantum dot interacting with an acoustic-phonon bath and a high-Q microcavity. Power broadening is investigated using a time-convolutionless master equation in the polaron frame, which allows for a nonperturbative treatment of the interaction of the quantum dot with the phonon reservoir. We calculate the full non-Lorentzian photoluminescence (PL) line shapes and numerically extract the intensity linewidths of the quantum-dot exciton and the cavity mode as a function of the pump rate and temperature. For increasing field strengths, multiphonon and multiphoton effects are found to be important, even for phonon-bath temperatures as low as 4 K. We show that the interaction of the quantum dot with the phonon reservoir introduces pronounced features in the power-broadened PL line shape, enabling one to observe clear signatures of electron-phonon scattering. The PL line shapes from cavity pumping and exciton pumping are found to be distinctly different, primarily since the latter is excited through the exciton-phonon reservoir. To help explain the underlying physics of phonon scattering on the power-broadened line shape, an effective phonon Lindblad master equation derived from the full time-convolutionless master equation is introduced; we identify and calculate distinct Lindblad scattering contributions from electron-phonon interactions, including effects such as excitation-induced dephasing, incoherent exciton excitation, and exciton-cavity feeding. Our effective phonon master equation is shown to reproduce the full PL intensity and the phonon-coupling effects very well, suggesting that its general Lindblad form may find widespread use in semiconductor cavity-QED.

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Popular Summary

Placing a quantum emitter of light, such as a quantum dot, inside a reflective cavity that confines light leads to interesting interactions between the quantum dot and cavity-confined light. Such interactions, studied by cavity quantum electrodynamics (cavity-QED), offer ways for controlled generation and manipulation of single photons—highly desired in quantum information processing and photonics applications. Building cavity-QED-based devices therefore requires a fundamental understanding of the underlying quantum processes. One way to probe these processes is to coherently excite the quantum dot or cavity resonances and then monitor the intensity in the quantum-dot–cavity system of the photoluminescence emitted by the dot or cavity as a result of the ensuing light-matter interactions. The key questions are then: What fundamental (quantum) processes are responsible for the behavior of the photoluminescence intensity, and how can one describe those processes theoretically? In this paper, we answer these two questions concretely for the case of a quantum-dot emitter embedded in a semiconductor microcavity.

Although semiconductor quantum dots are often likened to artificial atoms, they have unique solid-state microscopic processes, such as electron–acoustic-phonon scattering, which can be detrimental to their applications. To study the influence of electron-phonon interactions on the photoluminescence intensity of a quantum-dot–cavity system, we derive a quantum master-equation formalism that also employs the polaron concept of electron-phonon interaction and use it to show that the interaction leaves striking signatures in the photoluminescence intensity and must be taken into account in interpreting experimental data. To aid experimentalists’ effort, we have also simplified the full polaron formalism to a sufficiently accurate, easy-to-use effective master equation, where different processes associated with the electron-phonon interaction are identified. Using this user-friendly master equation, experimentalists will be able to extract and understand from their data the contributions of the different scattering processes.

We believe that this work will serve to direct both the experimental and theoretical focus and that it will find broad use in interpreting current and future experimental data on semiconductor cavity-QED systems.

Article Text

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Phys. Rev. X 1, 021009– Published 15 November, 2011
  • Received 2 August 2011
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