Quantum correlation among photons from a single quantum dot at room temperature

Maxwell's equations successfully describe the statistical properties1,2 of fluorescence from an ensemble of atoms or semiconductors in one or more dimensions. But quantization of the radiation field is required to explain the correlations of light generated by a single two-level quantum emitter, such as an atom, ion or single molecule3,4,5,6. The observation of photon antibunching in resonance fluorescence from a single atom unequivocally demonstrated the non-classical nature of radiation3. Here we report the experimental observation of photon antibunching from an artificial system—a single cadmium selenide quantum dot at room temperature. Apart from providing direct evidence for a solid-state non-classical light source, this result proves that a single quantum dot acts like an artificial atom, with a discrete anharmonic spectrum. In contrast, we find the photon-emission events from a cluster of several dots to be uncorrelated.