Probing different regimes of strong field light–matter interaction with semiconductor quantum dots and few cavity photons

In this work we present an extensive experimental and theoretical investigation of different regimes of strong field light–matter interaction for cavity-driven quantum dot (QD) cavity systems. The electric field enhancement inside a high-Q micropillar cavity facilitates exceptionally strong interaction with few cavity photons, enabling the simultaneous investigation for a wide range of QD-laser detuning. In case of a resonant drive, the formation of dressed states and a Mollow triplet sideband splitting of up to 45 μeV is measured for a mean cavity photon number $⟨n_c⟩⩽1$. In the asymptotic limit of the linear AC Stark effect we systematically investigate the power and detuning dependence of more than 400 QDs. Some QD-cavity systems exhibit an unexpected anomalous Stark shift, which can be explained by an extended dressed 4-level QD model. We provide a detailed analysis of the QD-cavity systems properties enabling this novel effect. The experimental results are successfully reproduced using a polaron master equation approach for the QD-cavity system, which includes the driving laser field, exciton-cavity and exciton-phonon interactions. (paper)