The Photonics and Semiconductor Nanophysics group at the Eindhoven University of Technology has an open PhD student position on solid-state cavity quantum electrodynamics.

Cavity quantum electrodynamics (cQED) investigates the coupling of single quantum emitters to single photons in optical cavities and has represented one of the most fascinating systems for the study of quantum physics [1].

It enables the full control of the generation, absorption and processing of single photons, and the production of entangled states of photons and atoms, and is therefore of paramount importance in optical quantum information processing. Solid-state cQED systems, for example based on semiconductor nanocavities coupled to single quantum dots (QDs), are particularly interesting for their potential scalability and integration.

However, so far the progress in solid-state cQED has been hampered by the very limited degree of control, due to the ultrafast time scales (ps) and subwavelength spatial scales, which make the control of the QD-photon interaction in real time a formidable challenge. Recently, we have demonstrated a novel method to control the QD-photon coupling rate and the photon lifetime on ps timescales without directly perturbing the emitter's coherent evolution [2]. This finally opens the way to the real-time control of solid-state cQED, including the creation of entanglement between QD excitons and photons.

Project description
The selected candidate will perform fundamental research at the interface between nanophotonics and quantum optics. He/she will conceive and fabricate solid-state nanophotonic structures based on photonic crystals with embedded QDs and will use them to experimentally investigate the ultrafast control of spontaneous emission and Rabi oscillation using ps optical pulses.

Specific goals include the demonstration of the shaping of the temporal waveform of a single photon on the 10 ps timescale, and of the on/off switching of the lasing oscillation in a microcavity laser by the control of the emitter-photon interaction rate. The project will be supervised by Prof. A. Fiore