Anna Sitek

Few-photon model of the optical emission of semiconductor quantum dots.

The Jaynes-Cummings model provides a well established theoretical framework for single electron two level systems in a radiation field. Similar exactly solvable models for semiconductor light emitters such as quantum dots dominated by many particle interactions are not known. We access these systems by a generalized cluster expansion, the photon-probability cluster expansion: a reliable approach for few-photon dynamics in many body electron systems. As a first application, we discuss vacuum Rabi oscillations and show that their amplitude determines the number of electrons in the quantum dot.

Collective fluorescence and decoherence of a few nearly identical quantum dots

We study the collective interaction of excitons in closely spaced artificial molecules and arrays of nearly identical quantum dots with the electromagnetic modes. We discuss how collective fluorescence builds up in the presence of a small mismatch of the transition energy. We show that a superradiant state of a single exciton in a molecule of two dots with realistic energy mismatch undergoes a two-rate decay. We also analyze the stability of subdecoherent states for nonidentical systems.

Electron localization and optical absorption of polygonal quantum rings

This work was financially supported by the Research Fund of the University of Iceland, the Nordic network NANOCONTROL, project No.: P-13053, and by MINECO-Spain (Grant No. FIS2011-23526).

Theory of nonlinear optical response of ensembles of double quantum dots

We study theoretically the time-resolved four-wave mixing (FWM) response of an ensemble of pairs of quantum dots undergoing radiative recombination. At short (picosecond) delay times, the response signal shows beats that may be dominated by the subensemble of resonant pairs, which gives access to the information on the interdot coupling. At longer delay times, the decay of the FWM signal is governed by two rates which result from the collective interaction between the two dots and the radiation modes. The two rates correspond to the subradiant and super-radiant components in the radiative decay. Coupling between the dots enhances the collective effects and makes them observable even when the average energy mismatch between the dots is relatively large.

Interplay of coupling and superradiant emission in the optical response of a double quantum dot

We study theoretically the optical response of a double quantum dot structure to an ultrafast optical excitation. We show that the interplay of a specific type of coupling between the dots and their collective interaction with the radiative environment leads to very characteristic features in the time-resolved luminescence as well as in the absorption spectrum of the system. For a sufficiently strong coupling, these effects survive even if the transition energy mismatch between the two dots exceeds by far the emission linewidth.

Time-dependent current into and through multilevel parallel quantum dots in a photon cavity

We analyze theoretically the charging current into, and the transport current through, a nanoscale two-dimensional electron system with two parallel quantum dots embedded in a short wire placed in a photon cavity. A plunger gate is used to place specific many-body states of the interacting system in the bias window defined by the external leads. We show how the transport phenomena active in the many-level complex central system strongly depend on the gate voltage. We identify a resonant transport through the central system as the two spin components of the one-electron ground state are in the bias window. This resonant transport through the lowest energy electron states seems to a large extent independent of the detuned photon field when judged from the transport current. This could be expected in the small bias regime, but an observation of the occupancy of the states of the system reveals that this picture is not entirely true. The current does not reflect slower photon-active internal transitions bringing the system into the steady state. The number of initially present photons determines when the system reaches the real steady state. With two-electron states in the bias window we observe a more complex situation with intermediate radiative and nonradiative relaxation channels leading to a steady state with a weak nonresonant current caused by inelastic tunneling through the two-electron ground state of the system. The presence of the radiative channels makes this phenomena dependent on the number of photons initially in the cavity.

Regimes of radiative and nonradiative transitions in transport through an electronic system in a photon cavity reaching a steady state

We analyze how a multilevel many-electron system in a photon cavity approaches the steady state when coupled to external leads. When a plunger gate is used to lower cavity photon dressed one- and two-electron states below the bias window defined by the external leads, we can identify one regime with nonradiative transitions dominating the electron transport, and another regime with radiative transitions. Both transitions trap the electrons in the states below the bias bringing the system into a steady state. The order of the two regimes and their relative strength depends on the location of the bias window in the energy spectrum of the system and the initial conditions.

Conductance oscillations of core-shell nanowires in transversal magnetic fields

This work was financially supported by the research funds of Reykjavik University and of the University of Iceland, and by the Icelandic Research Fund. T.O.R. acknowledges support from a European Research Council Starting Grant. We are thankful to Thomas Schapers and Sebastian Heedt for very interesting discussions [23].

Cavity-photon contribution to the effective interaction of electrons in parallel quantum dots

A single cavity photon mode is expected to modify the Coulomb interaction of an electron system in the cavity. Here we investigate this phenomena in a parallel double quantum dot system. We explore properties of the closed system and the system after it has been opened up for electron transport. We show how results for both cases support the idea that the effective electron-electron interaction becomes more repulsive in the presence of a cavity photon field. This can be understood in terms of the cavity photons dressing the polarization terms in the effective mutual electron interaction leading to nontrivial delocalization or polarization of the charge in the double parallel dot potential. In addition, we find that the effective repulsion of the electrons can be reduced by quadrupolar collective oscillations excited by an external classical dipole electric field.

Coupled Collective and Rabi Oscillations Triggered by Electron Transport through a Photon Cavity

We show how the switching on of electron transport through a system of two parallel quantum dots embedded in a short quantum wire in a photon cavity can trigger coupled Rabi and collective electron–photon oscillations. We select the initial state of the system to be an eigenstate of the closed system containing two Coulomb-interacting electrons with possibly few photons of a single cavity mode. The many-level quantum dots are described by a continuous potential. The Coulomb interaction and the para- and diamagnetic electron–photon interactions are treated by exact diagonalization in a truncated Fock space. To identify the collective modes, the results are compared for an open and a closed system with respect to the coupling to external electron reservoirs, or leads. We demonstrate that the vacuum Rabi oscillations can be seen in transport quantities as the current in and out of the system.