Entangled photons from a strongly coupled quantum dot-cavity system

Abstract

A quantum dot strongly coupled to a photonic crystal has been recently proposed as a source of entangled photon pairs [R. Johne et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 240404 (2008)]. The biexction decay via intermediate polariton states can be used to overcome the natural splitting between the exciton states coupled to the horizontally and vertically polarized light modes, so that high degrees of entanglement can be expected. We investigate theoretically the features of realistic dot-cavity systems, including the effect of the different oscillator strength of excitons resonances coupled to the different polarizations of light. We show that in this case, an independent adjustment of the cavity resonances is needed in order to keep a high entanglement degree. We also consider the case when the biexciton-exciton transition is also strongly coupled to a cavity mode. We show that a very fast emission rate can be achieved allowing the repetition rates in the THz range. Such fast emission should however be paid for by a very complex tuning of the many strongly coupled resonances involved and by a loss of quantum efficiency. Altogether a strongly coupled dot-cavity system seems to be very promising as a source of entangled photon pairs.