Fabrication and characterization of point defect photonic crystal nanocavities at telecom wavelength

The development of semiconductor based single photon sources at telecom wavelength is a fundamental need for applications like quantum cryptography and quantum computing. The coupling of a single photon emitter, such as a quantum dot (QD) to a cavity in the weak coupling regime, provides enhanced spontaneous emission rate and it is known as Purcell effect. We report our progress in the fabrication and optimization of photonic crystal nanocavities with Q up to 1(0)4 on a GaAs membrane with embedded low density (20 dots/mu m(2)) QDs emitting at lambda = 1300 nm. (c) 2007 Published by Elsevier B.V.