Abstract
The area theorem states that when a short optical pulse drives a quantum two-level system, it undergoes Rabi oscillations in the probability of scattering a single photon. In this work, we investigate the breakdown of the area theorem as both the pulse length becomes non-negligible and for certain pulse areas. Using simple quantum trajectories, we provide an analytic approximation to the photon emission dynamics of a two-level system. Our model provides an intuitive way to understand re-excitation, which elucidates the mechanism behind the two-photon emission events that can spoil single-photon emission. We experimentally measure the emission statistics from a semiconductor quantum dot, acting as a two-level system, and show good agreement with our simple model for short pulses. Additionally, the model clearly explains our recent results (Fischer and Hanschke 2017 et al Nat. Phys.) showing dominant two-photon emission from a two-level system for pulses with interaction areas equal to an even multiple of π.
Highlights
One of the most fundamental building blocks of quantum optics is the single discrete atomic transition, which at its simplest is modeled as a quantum two-level system [1]
We provide an analytic approximation to the photon emission dynamics of a two-level system
After almost two decades of development in a solid-state environment, the quantum two-level system is poised to serve the pivotal role of an on-demand single-photon source [2, 6, 8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16]—by converting laser pulses with Poissonian counting statistics to single photons—for quantum networks [17,18,19]
Summary
Kevin A Fischer , Lukas Hanschke, Malte Kremser, Jonathan J Finley, Kai Müller and Jelena Vučković.
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