Telecom-band single photon sources monolithically grown on silicon
Résumé
Securing communications over long distances requires bright single photon sources emitting in the telecom band in a well-defined spatial and polarization mode. First, we report our efforts to obtain single photon emission and a Gaussian far-field radiation pattern in the telecom O-band from single quantum dot-nanowires (QD-NWs) monolithically grown on silicon. The InAs/InP QD-NWs were grown on silicon (111) substrates by Vapor-Liquid-Solid assisted solid-source Molecular Beam Epitaxy using In-Au droplets as a catalyst in-situ deposited at 500°C [1]. Low QD-NW density was obtained by a careful control of the In/Au catalyst flux ratio to achieve density <1 NW/μm² [2]. The growth conditions have been tuned (Fig 1.a) to optimize the source brightness and reduce the far-field divergence. The control of the nanowire geometry allows us to demonstrate a Gaussian far field emission profile with an emission angle θ≈30° (Fig 1.c) from a single QD at room temperature in the telecom O-band and the observation of single photon emission with g2(0) = 0.05 (Fig 1.b) at cryogenic temperature [3]. Secondly, we have optimized the growth procedure to achieve InAs/InP QD NWs with an elongated top-view cross-section. Polarization-resolved photoluminescence measurements have revealed a significant influence of the asymmetric shaped NWs on the InAs QD emission polarization with the photons being mainly polarized parallel to the NW long cross section axis [4]. A degree of linear polarization (DLP) up to 91% is obtained, being at the state of the art for the reported DLP values from QD-NWs.
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References:
[1] A. Mavel et al, Journal of Crystal Growth, 458 (2017) 96.
[2] A. Jaffal et al, Nanotechnology, 31 (2020) 354003.
[3] A. Jaffal et al, Nanoscale, 11 (2019) 21847-21855.
[4] A. Jaffal et al, Nanoscale, 13 (2021) 16952–16958.