Abstract

Various applications in the rapidly growing field of quantum information science require reliable and effective quantum light sources. We observed superconducting proximity in semiconductor light-emitting diodes (Fig. 1). These hybrid structures were proposed by us as an efficient approach for generation of entangled photons, based on Cooper-pair luminescence in semiconductors, which does not require isolated emitters. Semiconductor quantum wells, remove the light-heavy-hole degeneracy, allowing efficient photon entanglement generation in simple electrically-driven structures, taking advantage of the superconducting macroscopic coherence [1]. Based on the developed theory we analyzed a new effect of enhanced light amplification in electrically-driven semiconductor-superconductor structures, including Cooper-pair based two-photon gain [2]. Moreover, we proposed a compact and highly-efficient scheme for a complete Bell-state analysis using two-photon absorption in a superconducting proximity region of a semiconductor avalanche photodiode. This Cooper-pair based two-photon absorption results in a strong detection preference of a specified entangled state.

© 2017 IEEE