Damping of Rabi Oscillations in InAs Quantum Dots due to Acoustic Phonons

Semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) are regarded as potential candidates for the implementation of solid state quantum computation. The basic ingredient for the realization of a quantum computer are Rabi oscillations - a sinusoidal time evolution of the population difference in a two-level system that is observed under strong resonant optical excitation (Stievater et al., 2001). In this contribution we report measurements of the damping of Rabi oscillations in InAs self-assembled QDs in the temperature range between T = 5 and 90 K. From comparison of the time domain Rabi oscillations with spectral hole burning (SHB) lineshapes we conclude that acoustic phonon-induced dephasing processes damp the Rabi oscillations.