Manipulations of a Qubit in a Semiconductor Quantum Dot

Abstract

In a single self-assembled InGaAs quantum dot, the one exciton ground state transition defines a two-level system, which appears as an extremely narrow resonance of only a few μeV width. The resonant interaction of this two-level system with cw laser fields can be studied in detail by photocurrent spectroscopy, revealing the fine structure of the excitonic ground state as well as the effects of nonlinear absorption and power broadening. For the case of pulsed laser fields and in the absence of decoherence, the two-level system represents a qubit. Excitations with ps laser pulses result in qubit rotations, which appear as Rabi oscillations in photocurrent experiments. Double pulse experiments further allow us to infer the decoherence time and to perform coherent control on a two-level system.