Electro-mechanically tunable, waveguide-coupled photonic-crystal cavities with embedded quantum dots

On-chip microcavities with embedded quantum emitters provide an excellent platform for high-performance quantum technologies. A major difficulty for such devices is overcoming the detrimental effects of fluctuations in the device dimensions caused by the limitations of the fabrication processes. We present a system based on a 1D photonic-crystal cavity with an embedded quantum dot. A microelectromechanical cantilever is used to tune the cavity mode wavelength via index modulation and the quantum-confined Stark effect is used to tune the quantum dot emission energy, thus mitigating the effect of fabrication imperfections. To demonstrate the operation of the device, a maximum voltage-controllable cavity tuning range of Δλ = 1.8 nm is observed. This signal is measured at the end of a bus waveguide which side-couples to the cavity, enabling the coupling of multiple cavities to a common waveguide, a key requirement for scale-up in these systems. Additionally, a quantum dot is tuned into resonance with the cavity mode, exhibiting an enhanced emission rate with a detector-resolution limited Purcell factor of FP = 3.5.