Generation and transfer of single photons on a photonic crystal chip

We present a basic building block of a quantum network consisting of a quantum dot coupled to a source cavity, which in turn is coupled to a target cavity via a waveguide. The single photon emission from the high-Q/V source cavity is characterized by a twelve-fold spontaneous emission (SE) rate enhancement that results in a SE coupling efficiency near 0.98 into the source cavity mode. Single photons are efficiently transferred into the target cavity through the waveguide, with a source/target field intensity ratio of 0.12 (up to 0.49 observed in other structures without coupled quantum dots). This system shows great promise as a building block of future on-chip quantum information processing systems.