Single-photon Emission from an Acoustically-driven Lateral Light-emitting Diode

Abstract

Single-photon sources are essential building blocks in quantum photonic networks, where quantum-mechanical properties of photons are utilised to achieve quantum technologies such as quantum cryptography and quantum computing. Most conventional solid-state single-photon sources are based on single emitters such as self-assembled quantum dots, which are created at random locations and require spectral filtering. These issues hinder the integration of a single-photon source into a scaleable photonic quantum network for applications such as on-chip photonic quantum processors. In this work, using only regular lithography techniques on a conventional GaAs quantum well, we realise an electrically triggered single-photon source with a GHz repetition rate and without the need for spectral filtering. In this device, a single electron is carried in the potential minimum of a surface acoustic wave (SAW) and is transported to a region of holes to form an exciton. The exciton then decays and creates a single photon in a lifetime of ~ 100ps. This SAW-driven electroluminescence (EL) yields photon antibunching with $g^{(2)}(0)=0.39\pm 0.05$, which satisfies the common criterion for a single-photon source $g^{(2)}(0)<0.5$. Furthermore, we estimate that if a photon detector receives a SAW-driven EL signal within one SAW period, this signal has a 79%-90% chance of being a single photon. This work shows that a single-photon source can be made by combining single-electron transport and a lateral n-i-p junction. This approach makes it possible to create multiple synchronised single-photon sources at chosen positions with photon energy determined by quantum-well thickness. Compared with conventional quantum-dot-based single-photon sources, this device may be more suitable for an on-chip integrated photonic quantum network.

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Cited by in corpus (13)

• Generation of a single-cycle acoustic pulse: a scalable solution for transport in single-electron circuits
• Coherent beam splitting of flying electrons driven by a surface acoustic wave
• Remotely pumped GHz antibunched emission from single exciton centers in GaAs
• Flying electron spin control gates
• Non-adiabatic single-electron pump in a dopant-free GaAs/AlGaAs 2DEG
• Advances toward high-accuracy gigahertz operation of tunable-barrier single-hole pumps in silicon
• Stable electroluminescence in ambipolar dopant-free lateral p-n junctions
• An ambipolar single-charge pump in silicon
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• Generation of a single-cycle surface acoustic wave pulse on LiNbO${}_3$ for application to thin film materials
• Protected Long-Distance Guiding of Hypersound Underneath a Nano-Corrugated Surface