Generation of entangled photon pairs from a single quantum dot embedded in a planar photonic-crystal cavity

We present a formal theory of single quantum dot coupling to a planar photonic crystal that supports quasidegenerate cavity modes and use this theory to describe and optimize entangled-photon pair generation via the biexciton-exciton cascade. In the generated photon pairs, either both photons are spontaneously emitted from the dot or one photon is emitted from the biexciton spontaneously while the other is emitted via the leaky cavity mode. In the strong-coupling regime, the generated photon pairs can be maximally entangled in qualitative agreement with the dressed-state predictions of Johne [Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 240404 (2008)]. We derive useful analytical formulas for the spectrum of the emitted photon pairs in the presence of exciton and biexciton broadening, which is necessary to connect to realistic experiments and demonstrate the important differences with the approximate dressed-state approach. We also present a method for calculating and optimizing the entanglement between the emitted photons, which can account for postsample spectral filtering. Pronounced entanglement values of greater than 80% are demonstrated using experimentally achievable parameters even without spectral filtering.