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Recently, the concept of an ''$N$-photon spectrum'' -- a spectrally resolved $N$-photon correlation function -- has been introduced as an innovative quantum optics characterization tool that uniquely reveals information about pathways underlying the generation of light in a given source. Here, the authors investigate experimentally the three-photon spectrum of resonance fluorescence from a single semiconductor quantum dot. The observations agree with previous theoretical work, revealing significantly more pronounced photon antibunching at the Mollow triplet sidebands and more strongly correlated emission through virtual states compared to the two-photon counterpart.

The coherent optical response from 140 nm and 65 nm thick ZnO epitaxial layers is studied using four-wave-mixing spectroscopy with picosecond temporal resolution. Resonant excitation of neutral donor-bound excitons results in two-pulse and three-pulse photon echoes. For the donor-bound A exciton (${\mathrm{D}}^{0}{\mathrm{X}}_{\text{A}}$) at temperature of 1.8 K we evaluate optical coherence times ${T}_{2}=33--50$ ps corresponding to homogeneous line widths of $13--19\phantom{\rule{0.222222em}{0ex}}\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{eV}$, about two orders of magnitude smaller as compared with the inhomogeneous broadening of the optical transitions. The coherent dynamics is determined mainly by the population decay with time ${T}_{1}=30--40$ ps, while pure dephasing is negligible. Temperature increase leads to a significant shortening of ${T}_{2}$ due to interaction with acoustic phonons. In contrast, the loss of coherence of the donor-bound B exciton (${\mathrm{D}}^{0}{\mathrm{X}}_{\text{B}}$) is significantly faster (${T}_{2}=3.6\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathrm{ps}$) and governed by pure dephasing processes.

We consider the photon-assisted tunneling (PAT) and the Landau-Zener-Stueckelberg (LZS) interference for double quantum dots induced electrostatically along a semiconducting carbon nanotube. An atomistic tight-binding approach and the time-dependent configuration interaction method are employed for description of the systems of a few confined electrons and holes. We reproduce the patterns of the LZS interference recently observed for the quantum double dots describing transport across hole-localized states. Moreover, we indicate that for charge configurations for which the ground-state is Pauli blocked PAT can be used for resolution of the transitions that involve spin-flip or intervalley transitions without the spin-valley conserving background signal.

We propose an alternative route to transport experiments for detecting Majorana bound states (MBSs) by combining topological superconductivity with quantum optics in a superconducting $pn$ junction containing a quantum dot (QD). We consider a topological superconductor (TSC) hosting two Majorana bound states at its boundary ($n$ side). Within an effective low-energy model, the MBSs are coherently tunnel-coupled to a spin-split electron level on the QD which is placed close to one of the MBSs. Holes on the QD are tunnel-coupled to a normal conducting reservoir ($p$ side). Via electron-hole recombination, photons in the optical range are emitted, which have direct information on the MBS-properties through the recombined electrons. Using a master equation approach, we calculate the polarization-resolved photon emission intensities (PEIs). In the weak coupling regime between MBSs and QD, we find an analytical expression for the PEI which allows to clearly distinguish the cases of well separated MBSs at zero energy from overlapping MBSs. For separated MBSs, the Majorana spinor-polarization is given by the relative widths of the two PEI peaks associated with the two spin states on the QD. For overlapping MBSs, a coupling to the distant (nonlocal) MBS causes a shift of the emission peaks. Additionally, we show that quasiparticle poisoning (QP) influences the PEI drastically and changes its shot noise from super-Poissonian to sub-Poissonian. In the strong coupling regime, more resonances emerge in the PEI due to spin-mixing effects. Finally, we comment on how our proposal could be implemented using a Majorana nanowire., Comment: 22 pages, 11 figures, published version

Based on simultaneous analysis of the frequency-resolved transient grating, peak shift, and echo width signals, we present a model for the third-order optical response of carotenoids including population dynamics and system-bath interactions. Our frequency-resolved photon echo experiments show that the model needs to incorporate the excited-state absorption from both the S-2 and the S-1 states. We apply our model to analyze the experimental results on astaxanthin and lycopene, aiming to elucidate the relation between structure and system-bath interactions. Our analysis allows us to relate structural motifs to changes in the energy-gap correlation functions. We find that the terminal rings of astaxanthin lead to increased coupling between slow molecular motions and the electronic transition. We also find evidence for stronger coupling to higher frequency overdamped modes in astaxanthin, pointing to the importance of the functional groups in providing coupling to fluctuations influencing the dynamics in the passage through the conical intersection governing the S-2-S-1 relaxation.

A model for direct two band excitons in a disordered quantum well coupled to light in a cavity is investigated. In the limit in which the exciton density is high, we assess the impact of weak `pair-breaking' disorder on the feasibility of condensation of cavity polaritons. The mean-field phase diagram shows a `lower density' region, where the condensate is dominated by electronic excitations and where disorder tends to close the condensate and quench coherence. Increasing the density of excitations in the system, partially due to the screening of Coulomb interaction, the excitations contributing to the condensate become mainly photon-like and coherence is reestablished for any value of disorder. In contrast, in the photon dominated region of the phase diagram, the energy gap of the quasi-particle spectrum still closes when the disorder strength is increased. Above mean-field, thermal, quantum and fluctuations induced by disorder are considered and the spectrum of the collective excitations is evaluated. In particular, it is shown that the angle resolved photon intensity exhibits an abrupt change in its behaviour, going from the condensed to the non-condensed region., Comment: 17 pages, 9 eps figures; published version

We report the first angle-resolved photon-stimulated-desorption study of a covalent molecule bonded to a metal surface, CO on Ru(001). The mechanisms for ion desorption involve intramolecular excitations, not substrate core-level excitations.