Strain-driven reorientation of the quantization axis of a quantum dot for integrated quantum photonics

The selection rules of optical transitions in epitaxial quantum dots are determined to a large extent by the orientation of their quantization axis, which is usually parallel to the growth direction. This configuration is well suited for vertically emitting quantum devices, but not ideal for planar photonic circuits. Here we show that the quantization axis of a GaAs quantum dot can be turned to lie in the growth plane via uniaxial elastic stress. This 90 degree rotation, which is accomplished through a complex evolution of the confined hole wave function, is possible whenever confinement can be viewed as a perturbation compared to the strain-induced effects. The experimental and computational results suggest that uniaxial stress already employed for enhancing the performance of integrated electronic circuits, may be the right strategy to obtain quantum-light sources with ideally oriented transition dipoles and enhanced oscillator strengths for integrated quantum photonic circuits.

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