Quantum Light-Matter Interactions

A quantum system interacting with a time-periodic excitation creates a ladder of hybrid eigenstates in which the system is mixed with an increasing number of photons. This mechanism, referred to as dressing, has been observed in the context of light-matter interaction in systems as varied as atoms, molecules and solid-state qubits.

In this work, we demonstrate state dressing in a semiconductor quantum dot tunnel-coupled to a charge reservoir. We observe the emergence of a Floquet ladder of states in the system's high-frequency electrical response, manifesting as interference fringes at the multiphoton resonances despite the system lacking an avoided crossing and transitions being allowed solely via stochastic charge exchanges with the reservoir that erase the charge's quantum phase.

We study the dressed quantum dot while changing reservoir temperature, charge lifetime, and excitation amplitude and reveal the fundamental nature of the mechanism by developing a theory based on the quantum dynamics of the Floquet ladder, which is in excellent agreement with the data. Furthermore, we show how the technique finds applications in the accurate and fast electrostatic characterisation of semiconductor quantum dots.