Phonon impacts on entangled photon pair generation from the biexciton cascade in a quantum dot: Phonon coherent state representation

Abstract

A full quantum microscopic theory is developed to analyze a biexciton radiative cascade coupled to bulk acoustic phonons in a quantum dot. By considering the phonon sub-system in coherent state representation a new approach is proposed for investigating the phonon effects. Via this approach it is possible to obtain an exact analytical result for the phonon kernel in this system. This approach is introduced in the context of an example: the process of generating polarization-entangled photon pairs from the biexciton cascade in a quantum dot. We calculate the exact density matrix (using quantum state tomography) of photons and their concurrence. We show that the exchange interaction and temperature have remarkable effects on the degree of entanglement of the emitted photons. The approach introduced provides an exact analytical result for finite discrete electron states interacting with phonons. © 2014 Astro Ltd.