Macroscopic rotation of photon polarization induced by a single spin

作者：Arnold Christophe; Demory Justin; Loo Vivien; Lemaitre Aristide; Sagnes Isabelle; Glazov Mikhail; Krebs Olivier; Voisin Paul; Senellart Pascale; Lanco Loic^*

来源：Nature Communications, 2015, 6(1): 6236.

DOI：10.1038/ncomms7236

Entangling a single spin to the polarization of a single incoming photon, generated by an external source, would open new paradigms in quantum optics such as delayed-photon entanglement, deterministic logic gates or fault-tolerant quantum computing. These perspectives rely on the possibility that a single spin induces a macroscopic rotation of a photon polarization. Such polarization rotations induced by single spins were recently observed, yet limited to a few 10(-3) degrees due to poor spin-photon coupling. Here we report the enhancement by three orders of magnitude of the spin-photon interaction, using a cavity quantum electrodynamics device. A single hole spin in a semiconductor quantum dot is deterministically coupled to a micropillar cavity. The cavity-enhanced coupling between the incoming photons and the solid-state spin results in a polarization rotation by +/- 6 degrees when the spin is optically initialized in the up or down state. These results open the way towards a spin-based quantum network.

• 出版日期2015-2-17