DOE OSTI · 3020959
Efficient single-photon emission via quantum-confined charge funneling to quantum dots
Abstract
Quantum light sources, particularly single-photon emitters (SPEs), are critical for quantum communications and computing. Among them, III-V semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) have demonstrated superior SPE metrics, including near-unity brightness, high photon purity, and indistinguishability, making them especially suitable for quantum applications. However, their overall quantum efficiency—determined by a product of the internal, excitation, and outcoupling efficiencies—remains limited, primarily due to low (typically below 0.1%) excitation efficiency. To mitigate the low efficiency under non-resonant pumping, here we realize liquid droplet etched GaAs QDs in a microscale 3D AlGaAs charge-carrier funnel. The funnel channels charge carriers to the QD and enhances the overall emission efficiency by over one order of magnitude while preserving the SPE behavior. We reveal that a modified energy landscape around the QD leads to the excitation efficiency improvement. These energy landscape-modified QDs can be operated with optical excitation up to 10 μm away, raising the promise of efficient electrically driven QD SPEs for quantum information systems.
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Park, Sanghyeok [Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)], Azizur-Rahman, Khalifa M. [Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)] (ORCID:0009000741015152), Shima, Darryl [Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (United States)], Balakrishnan, Ganesh [Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (United States)], Yu, Jaeyeon [Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)], Jung, Hyunseung [Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)], Mah, Jasmine Jenji [Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)] (ORCID:0009000848471529), Prescott, Samuel Geoffrey [Univ. College London (United Kingdom)] (ORCID:0009000352563075), Chen, Pingping [Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States); Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)], Addamane, Sadhvikas Jayachandra [Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)] (ORCID:0000000252387409), Pete, Douglas V. [Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)], Mounce, Andrew [Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)] (ORCID:0000000281152764), Luk, Ting Shan [Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)], Iyer, Prasad P. [Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)] (ORCID:0000000268983619), Brener, Igal [Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)] (ORCID:0000000221395182), Mitrofanov, Oleg [Univ. College London (United Kingdom)] (ORCID:0000000335102675). 2025-11-25. Efficient single-photon emission via quantum-confined charge funneling to quantum dots. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43246-025-01017-5
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