Auxiliary-cavity-assisted vacuum Rabi splitting
of a semiconductor quantum dot in a photonic
crystal nanocavity
HUA-JUN CHEN
School of Mechanics and Photoelectric Physics, Anhui University of Science and Technology, Huainan 232001, China (chenphysics@126.com)
Received 14 September 2018; revised 8 October 2018; accepted 27 October 2018; posted 31 October 2018 (Doc. ID 345940);
published 30 November 2018
The coherent light-matter interaction has drawn an enormous amount of attention for its fundamental impor-
tance in the cavity quantum-electrodynamics (C-QED) field and great potential in quantum information appli-
cations. Here, we design a hybrid C-QED system consisting of a quantum dot (QD) driven by two-tone fields
implanted in a photonic cr ystal (PhC) cavity coupled to an auxiliary cavity with a single-mode waveguide and
investigate the hybrid system operating in the weak, intermediate, and strong coupling regimes of the light-matter
interaction via comparing the QD-photon interaction with the dipole decay rate and the cavity field decay rate.
The results indicate that the auxiliary cavity plays a key role in the hybrid system, which affords a quantum
channel to influence the absorptio n of the probe field. By controlling the coupling strength between the auxiliary
cavity and the PhC cavity, the phenomenon of the Mollow triplet can appear in the intermediate coupling regime,
and even in the weak coupling regime. We further study the strong coupling interaction manifested by vacuum
Rabi splitting in the absorption with manipulating the cavity-cavity coupling under different parameter regimes.
This study provides a promising platform for understanding the dynamics of QD-C-QED systems and paving the
way toward on-chip QD-based nanophotonic devices.
© 2018 Chinese Laser Press
https://doi.org/10.1364/PRJ.6.001171
1. INTRODUCTION
Cavity quantum electrodynamics (C-QED) [1,2], researching the
physics of an interaction system including a single quantum emit-
ter and a single radiation mode and classifying the interactions
into weak, intermediate, and strong coupling regimes, has drawn
tremendous attention not only because it provides a test bed for
quantum physics, but also because it has potential applications in
quantum information processing [3–7]. Semiconductor nano-
structures coupled to optical resonators, such as a single quantum
dot (QD)–semiconductor microcavity system [8], a single QD
embedded in a microdisk microcavity system [9], and photonic
crystal (PhC) micro/nanocavities with self-assembled QD systems
[10], are a fascinating platform for studying solid-state C-QED
systems. In particular, PhC nanocavities coupled to QDs are some
of the most advanced systems for studying C-QED and con-
structing devices for quantum information processing due to their
strong light-matter interactions originating from the tight optical
confinement of the nanocavities. Based on the QD-microcavity
systems, various remarkable quantum phenomena have been
revealed, including laser oscillation [11], spontaneous emission
control [12], single-photon sources [13], quantum entanglement
[14], and vacuum Rabi splitting (VRS) [8,10 ,15].
For coherent manipulation, a key prerequisite is to reach the
strong coupling regime, where the emitter-photon coupling
strength becomes larger than the decay rates of the emitter
and the cavity field decay rate. Strong light-matter coupling
manifested by VRS has been observed in QD-C-QED systems
[8,10], which have been employed for developing various
classical and quantum optical devices, such as optical switches
[16,17], nonclassical light generators [18], and quantum gates
[19]. Since the first observation of the VRS in a solid-state
system composed of QDs and PhC cavities [10], this system
has been considered as a great candidate for realizing strong
coupling between QDs and a microcavity. In the past
decades, great efforts have been made in the investigation of
C-QED focusing on a single quantum emitter inside a cavity
[11,15,20–22], and how to improve the qualit y factor and re-
duce the mode volume of the resonators for realizing stronger
interactions. Recently, Liu et al. [23] have presented a protocol
for realizing effective strong coupling in a highly dissipative
C-QED system, where a highly dissipative cavity interacted
simultaneously with a single emitter and an auxiliary cavity
with a high quality factor but a large volum e. Their results have
shown that the vacuum Rabi oscillation occurs for a single
Research Article
Vol. 6, No. 12 / December 2018 / Photonics Research 1171
2327-9125/18/121171-06 Journal © 2018 Chinese Laser Press