Optical nonlinearity in a quantum dot–microcavity system under an external magnetic field

Abstract

We theoretically study the dynamics of a strongly coupled quantum dot–bimodal microcavity system under an external magnetic field, where the nondegenerate excitonic spin states caused by the Zeeman effect are coupled to both orthogonal cavity modes. We develop an effective cavity quantum electrodynamics model, demonstrate the polarization-related nonlinear response under a linearly polarized pulse excitation by calculating the time-resolved intracavity photon number, and investigate the dependence of system parameters on the nonlinearity. In addition, we show that, when driven by two pulses with perpendicular polarization and a relative time delay, the coupled system suppresses the delayed one, which can be applied to polarized optical switching at a single-photon level.