Elliptical micropillar cavity design for highly efficient polarized emission of single photons

Abstract

We present a numerical investigation of the performance of the micropillar cavity single-photon source featuring an elliptical cross section. While ellipticity serves to establish polarization control of the emitted photons, it introduces a trade-off due to reduced coupling to a Gaussian profile in the far field and the need for significantly increased pumping power when a resonant excitation pumping scheme is implemented. Starting from a circular micropillar, we identify optimum geometrical parameters leading to a maximum polarized coupling efficiency of 0.90 to a Gaussian profile in the far field combined with a modest relative increase in the pump power of 16 dB.