Highly indistinguishable single photons from incoherently excited quantum dots

Abstract

Semiconductor quantum dots with dimensions exceeding the free-exciton Bohr radius are appealing because of their high oscillator strengths. While this property has received much attention in the context of cavity quantum electrodynamics, little is known about the degree of indistinguishability of single photons consecutively emitted by such dots and on the proper excitation schemes to achieve high indistinguishability. A prominent example is represented by GaAs quantum dots obtained by local droplet etching, which recently outperformed other systems as triggered sources of entangled photon pairs. On these dots, we compare different single-photon excitation mechanisms, and we find (i) poor indistinguishability for conventional excitation via excited states and (ii) photon indistinguishablilities above 90% for both strictly resonant and for incoherent phonon-assisted excitation. Among the explored excitation schemes, optical phonon-assisted excitation allows straightforward laser rejection and is thus worth of further investigation and optimization for quantum dots embedded in high-brightness photonic structures.