ABSTRACT
We present a theoretical analysis for laser cooling of bulk GaAs based on a microscopic many-particle theory of absorption and luminescence of a partially ionized electron-hole plasma. Our cooling threshold analysis shows that, at low temperatures, the presence of the excitonic resonance in the luminescence is essential in competing against heating losses. The theory includes self-consistent energy renormalizations and line broadenings from both instantaneous mean-field and frequency-dependent carrier-carrier correlations, and it is applicable from the few-Kelvin regime to above room temperature.
ABSTRACT
Cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) systems allow the study of a variety of fundamental quantum-optics phenomena, such as entanglement, quantum decoherence and the quantum-classical boundary. Such systems also provide test beds for quantum information science. Nearly all strongly coupled cavity QED experiments have used a single atom in a high-quality-factor (high-Q) cavity. Here we report the experimental realization of a strongly coupled system in the solid state: a single quantum dot embedded in the spacer of a nanocavity, showing vacuum-field Rabi splitting exceeding the decoherence linewidths of both the nanocavity and the quantum dot. This requires a small-volume cavity and an atomic-like two-level system. The photonic crystal slab nanocavity--which traps photons when a defect is introduced inside the two-dimensional photonic bandgap by leaving out one or more holes--has both high Q and small modal volume V, as required for strong light-matter interactions. The quantum dot has two discrete energy levels with a transition dipole moment much larger than that of an atom, and it is fixed in the nanocavity during growth.
