Year: 2025
Type: article
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.
Source: Communications Materials
Language: English
Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,690
Funders: U.S. Department of Energy, Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, Research Councils UK, Office of Science, National Nuclear Security Administration, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Basic Energy Sciences, Laboratory Directed Research and Development, Sandia National Laboratories, Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering
OpenAlex ID: W4416664935