Resonant driving of a single photon emitter embedded in a mechanical oscillator
Résumé
Coupling a microscopic mechanical resonator to a nanoscale quantum system enables
control of the mechanical resonator via the quantum system and vice-versa. The coupling is
usually achieved through functionalization of the mechanical resonator, but this results in
additional mass and dissipation channels. An alternative is an intrinsic coupling based on
strain. Here we employ a monolithic semiconductor system: the nanoscale quantum system
is a semiconductor quantum dot (QD) located inside a nanowire. We demonstrate
the resonant optical driving of the QD transition in such a structure. The noise spectrum of
the resonance fluorescence signal, recorded in the single-photon counting regime, reveals a
coupling to mechanical modes of different types. We measure a sensitivity to displacement of
65 fm per square root of Hz limited by charge noise in the device. Finally, we use thermal excitation of the
different modes to determine the location of the QD within the trumpet, and calculate the
contribution of the Brownian motion to the dephasing of the emitter.