Nanowire-mediated photon entanglement between orthogonal quantum-dot exciton states

We demonstrate that in a quantum-dot-nanowire system, excitations of surface plasmon modes can be used to engineer anisotropy-induced photon entanglement between orthogonal exciton states. When a single quantum dot is excited in close proximity to a metallic nanowire, photon emission from the exciton states couples directly to the subwavelength confinement of optical fields in the nanowire, causing the long-lived entangled exciton states. The spectral density of states is immensely enhanced in the vicinity of the nanowire, mediating a strong coupling regime and effective quantum interference where the excitation energy can coherently be transferred between the orthogonal quantum-dot exciton states and the nanowire. The Rabi oscillation with non-Markovian features in the decay profiles signifies the strong interaction between the exciton states in the quantum dot near the surface plasmon nanowire.