Direct Evidence of Interlevel Exciton Transitions Mediated by Single Phonons in a Semiconductor Quantum Dot Using Resonance Fluorescence Spectroscopy

Edward B. Flagg, John W. Robertson, Sébastien Founta, Wenquan Ma, Min Xiao, Gregory J. Salamo, and Chih-Kang Shih

Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 097402 – Published 2 March 2009

Abstract

Using resonance fluorescence, we investigate how acoustic phonons mediate couplings between multiple electronic levels in a semiconductor quantum dot. We show the first direct evidence of population up-conversion in a single quantum dot, which we attribute to absorption of single acoustic phonons. Moreover, through a rate equation analysis, we find that below 20 K such single-phonon mediated couplings between the exciton ground state and the first excited state are primarily responsible for decoherence of the exciton quantum state.

Received 26 September 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.097402

Authors & Affiliations

Edward B. Flagg^1,*, John W. Robertson¹, Sébastien Founta¹, Wenquan Ma², Min Xiao², Gregory J. Salamo², and Chih-Kang Shih¹

¹Physics Department, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station C1600, Austin, Texas 78712, USA
²Physics Department, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701, USA

^*Present address: Joint Quantum Institute, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD 20899, USA. edward.flagg@nist.gov

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Vol. 102, Iss. 9 — 6 March 2009

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