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A heavy hole confined to an InGaAs quantum dot promises the union of a stable spin and optical coherence to form a near perfect, high-bandwidth spin-photon interface. Despite theoretical predictions and encouraging preliminary measurements, the dynamic processes determining the coherence of the hole spin are yet to be understood. Here, we establish the regimes that allow for a highly coherent hole spin in these systems, recovering a crossover from hyperfine to electrical-noise dominated decoherence with a few-Tesla external magnetic field. Dynamical decoupling allows us to reach the longest ground-state coherence time, T2, of 4.4 $\mu$s, observed in this system. The improvement of coherence we measure is quantitatively supported by an independent analysis of the local electrical environment., Comment: Supplemental material available upon request

A controlled quantum system can alter its environment by feedback, leading to reduced-entropy states of the environment and to improved system coherence. Here, using a quantum dot electron spin as control and probe, we prepare the quantum dot nuclei under the feedback of coherent population trapping and measure the evolution from a thermal to a reduced-entropy state, with the immediate consequence of extended qubit coherence. Via Ramsey interferometry on the electron spin, we directly access the nuclear distribution following its preparation, and measure the emergence and decay of correlations within the nuclear ensemble. Under optimal feedback, the inhomogeneous dephasing time of the electron, $T_2^*$, is extended by an order of magnitude to $39$~ns. Our results can be readily exploited in quantum information protocols utilizing spin-photon entanglement, and represent a step towards creating quantum many-body states in a mesoscopic nuclear spin ensemble., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures

Quantum entanglement between distant qubits is an important feature of quantum networks. Distribution of entanglement over long distances can be enabled through coherently interfacing qubit pairs via photonic channels. Here, we report the realization of optically generated quantum entanglement between electron spin qubits confined in two distant semiconductor quantum dots. The protocol relies on spin-photon entanglement in the trionic $\Lambda$-system and quantum erasure of the Raman-photon path. The measurement of a single Raman photon is used to project the spin qubits into a joint quantum state with an interferometrically stabilized and tunable relative phase. We report an average Bell-state fidelity for $|\psi^{(+)}\rangle$ and $|\psi^{(-)}\rangle$ states of $61.6\pm2.3\%$ and a record-high entanglement generation rate of 7.3 kHz between distant qubits.

We report the first experimental demonstration of interference-induced spectral line elimination predicted by Zhu and Scully [Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 388 (1996)] and Ficek and Rudolph [Phys. Rev. A 60, 4245 (1999)]. We drive an exciton transition of a self-assembled quantum dot in order to realize a two-level system exposed to bichromatic laser field and observe nearly complete elimination of the resonance fluorescence spectral line at the driving laser frequency. This is caused by quantum interference between coupled transitions among the doubly dressed excitonic states, without population trapping. We also demonstrate multiphoton ac Stark effect with shifted subharmonic resonances and dynamical modifications of resonance fluorescence spectra by using double dressing., Comment: 5pages, 4 figures

Coupling individual quantum systems lies at the heart of building scalable quantum networks. Here, we report the first direct photonic coupling between a semiconductor quantum dot and a trapped ion and we demonstrate that single photons generated by a quantum dot controllably change the internal state of an $\textrm{Yb}^+$ ion. We ameliorate the effect of the sixty-fold mismatch of the radiative linewidths with coherent photon generation and a high-finesse fiber-based optical cavity enhancing the coupling between the single photon and the ion. The transfer of information presented here via the classical correlations between the $\sigma_z$-projection of the quantum-dot spin and the internal state of the ion provides a promising step towards quantum state-transfer in a hybrid photonic network.

We demonstrate electrical control of the single photon emission spectrum from chromium-based colour centres implanted in monolithic diamond. Under an external electric field the tunability range is typically three orders of magnitude larger than the radiative linewidth and at least one order of magnitude larger than the observed linewidth. The electric and magnetic field dependence of luminescence gives indications on the inherent symmetry and we propose Cr-X or X-Cr-Y type noncentrosymmetric atomic configurations as most probable candidates for these centres.

We temporally resolve the resonance fluorescence from an electron spin confined to a single self-assembled quantum dot to measure directly the spin's optical initialization and natural relaxation timescales. Our measurements demonstrate that spin initialization occurs on the order of microseconds in the Faraday configuration when a laser resonantly drives the quantum dot transition. We show that the mechanism mediating the optically induced spin-flip changes from electron-nuclei interaction to hole-mixing interaction at 0.6 Tesla external magnetic field. Spin relaxation measurements result in times on the order of milliseconds and suggest that a $B^{-5}$ magnetic field dependence, due to spin-orbit coupling, is sustained all the way down to 2.2 Tesla., Comment: An additional EPAPS file in PDF format is available for download at the publications section of our website http://www.amop.phy.cam.ac.uk/amop-ma/

The ground state of neutral and negatively charged excitons confined to a single self-assembled InGaAs quantum dot is probed in a direct absorption experiment by high resolution laser spectroscopy. We show how the anisotropic electron-hole exchange interaction depends on the exciton charge and demonstrate how the interaction can be switched on and off with a small dc voltage. Furthermore, we report polarization sensitive analysis of the excitonic interband transition in a single quantum dot as a function of charge with and without magnetic field., Comment: Conference Proceedings, Physics and Applications of Spin-Related Phenomena in Semiconductors, Santa Barbara (CA), 2004. 4 pages, 4 figures; content as published

We investigate high resolution laser absorption spectroscopy of a single InGaAs/GaAs self-assembled quantum dot embedded in a field-effect structure. We show experimentally that the interband optical absorption to the lower Zeeman branch of the singly charged exciton is strongly inhibited due to spin (Pauli) blockade of the optical transition. At high magnetic fields the optical absorption to the upper Zeeman branch dominates the absorption spectrum. We find however that the spin blockade is not complete and a 10% leakage remains at high magnetic fields. Applying a gate voltage to empty the dot of its resident electron turns off the spin blockade. This effect is observed at 1.5 K and up to 9 Tesla., Comment: 3 pages, 4 figures; content as published