Solid-state single photon sources: the nanowire antenna

Inbal Friedler (1) , Christophe Sauvan (1) , Jean-Paul Hugonin (1) , Philippe Lalanne (1) , Julien Claudon (2) , Jean-Michel Gérard (2)

1 Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l'Institut d'Optique / Naphel
2 NPSC - Nanophysique et Semiconducteurs

We design several single-photon-sources based on the emission of a quantum dot embedded in a semiconductor (GaAs) nanowire. Through various taper designs, we engineer the nanowire ends to realize efficient metallic-dielectric mirrors and to reduce the divergence of the far-field radiation diagram. Using fully-vectorial calculations and a comprehensive Fabry-Perot model, we show that various realistic nanowire geometries may act as nanoantennas (volume of ≈0.05 λ3) that assist funnelling the emitted photons into a single monomode channel. Typically, very high extraction efficiencies above 90% are predicted for a collection optics with a numerical aperture NA=0.85. In addition, since no frequency-selective effect is used in our design, this large efficiency is achieved over a remarkably broad spectral range, 70 nm at λ=950 nm.

Domains: Optics / Photonic; Optics [physics.optics]

Inbal Friedler, Christophe Sauvan, Jean-Paul Hugonin, Philippe Lalanne, Julien Claudon, et al.. Solid-state single photon sources: the nanowire antenna. Optics Express, 2009, 17 (4), pp.2095-2110. ⟨hal-00570600⟩