Charged exciton creation with two-color optical excitation method and analysis of initialization process of electron spin qubit in quantum dots

Abstract

An optical pumping method for creating charged excitons in semiconductor quantum dots is studied using a micro-photoluminescence (PL) technique with a two-color excitation method. This method employs two laser sources whose energies are in the resonant and non-resonant barrier excitation conditions, respectively; one laser creates excitons, the other creates electrons. The two-color excitation exploits an asymmetric energy band structure for conduction and valence bands, which induces negatively charged excitons in single quantum dots. The PL spectra of a single quantum dot clearly vary from exciton-originated PL to charged exciton-originated PL as the excitation conditions are changed. This excitation method is applied to the initialization process of an electron spin qubit without a magnetic field. Experimental results are analyzed theoretically based on the use of a density matrix method for the initialization. The analysis reveals that the electron spin in quantum dots is sufficiently polarized for subsequent quantum computation processes. These results provide a simple and effective way of implementing quantum computing with spin qubits.