Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and other institutions have developed a new nanophotonic cavity that significantly improves the efficiency of photon collection from individual semiconductor quantum dots. The device, which consists of a suspended GaAs membrane with a circular dielectric grating, enhances both the emission and collection of quantum dot photons while maintaining relatively broadband operation.
The new cavity structure achieves a practical collection efficiency of approximately 10% with simple optics, representing a 20-fold improvement over unpatterned GaAs. Additionally, the device enhances the emission rate by a factor of four. Simulations suggest that further optimization could potentially achieve collection efficiencies greater than 80%, making this approach highly promising for creating bright single-photon sources.
The development of this nanophotonic cavity could have significant implications for various applications in spectroscopy and classical and quantum information processing, where bright and stable single-photon sources are essential.
Keywords: nanophotonic cavity, quantum dots, photon emission, single photons, quantum information processing
