2020, Weinberg, F., Han, M.K.L., Dahmke, I.N., Campo, A.D., de Jonge, N.

Excess presence of the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) as well as of the focal adhesion protein complexes are associated with increased proliferation, migratory, and invasive behavior of cancer cells. A cross-regulation between HER2 and integrin signaling pathways has been found, but the exact mechanism remains elusive. Here, we investigated whether HER2 colocalizes with focal adhesion complexes on breast cancer cells overexpressing HER2. For this purpose, vinculin or talin green fluorescent protein (GFP) fusion proteins, both key constituents of focal adhesions, were expressed in breast cancer cells. HER2 was either extracellularly or intracellularly labeled with fluorescent quantum dots nanoparticles (QDs). The cell-substrate interface was analyzed at the location of the focal adhesions by means of total internal reflection fluorescent microscopy or correlative fluorescence- and scanning transmission electron microscopy. Expression of HER2 at the cell-substrate interface was only observed upon intracellular labeling, and was heterogeneous with both HER2-enriched and -low regions. In contrast to an expected enrichment of HER2 at focal adhesions, an anti-correlated expression pattern was observed for talin and HER2. Our findings suggest a spatial anti-correlation between HER2 and focal adhesion complexes for adherent cells.

2017, Keil, R., Zopf, M., Chen, Y., Höfer, B., Zhang, J., Ding, F., Schmidt, O.G.

Semiconductor InAs/GaAs quantum dots grown by the Stranski-Krastanov method are among the leading candidates for the deterministic generation of polarization-entangled photon pairs. Despite remarkable progress in the past 20 years, many challenges still remain for this material, such as the extremely low yield, the low degree of entanglement and the large wavelength distribution. Here, we show that with an emerging family of GaAs/AlGaAs quantum dots grown by droplet etching and nanohole infilling, it is possible to obtain a large ensemble of polarization-entangled photon emitters on a wafer without any post-growth tuning. Under pulsed resonant two-photon excitation, all measured quantum dots emit single pairs of entangled photons with ultra-high purity, high degree of entanglement and ultra-narrow wavelength distribution at rubidium transitions. Therefore, this material system is an attractive candidate for the realization of a solid-state quantum repeater - among many other key enabling quantum photonic elements.

2018, Yuan, X., Weyhausen-Brinkmann, F., Martín-Sánchez, J., Piredda, G., Křápek, V., Huo, Y., Huang, H., Schimpf, C., Schmidt, O.G., Edlinger, J., Bester, G., Trotta, R., Rastelli, A.

The optical selection rules in epitaxial quantum dots are strongly influenced by the orientation of their natural quantization axis, which is usually parallel to the growth direction. This configuration is well suited for vertically emitting devices, but not for planar photonic circuits because of the poorly controlled orientation of the transition dipoles in the growth plane. Here we show that the quantization axis of gallium arsenide dots can be flipped into the growth plane via moderate in-plane uniaxial stress. By using piezoelectric strain-actuators featuring strain amplification, we study the evolution of the selection rules and excitonic fine structure in a regime, in which quantum confinement can be regarded as a perturbation compared to strain in determining the symmetry-properties of the system. The experimental and computational results suggest that uniaxial stress may be the right tool to obtain quantum-light sources with ideally oriented transition dipoles and enhanced oscillator strengths for integrated quantum photonics.

2017, Huber, D., Reindl, M., Huo, Y., Huang, H., Wildmann, J.S., Schmidt, O.G., Rastelli, A., Trotta, R.

The development of scalable sources of non-classical light is fundamental to unlocking the technological potential of quantum photonics. Semiconductor quantum dots are emerging as near-optimal sources of indistinguishable single photons. However, their performance as sources of entangled-photon pairs are still modest compared to parametric down converters. Photons emitted from conventional Stranski-Krastanov InGaAs quantum dots have shown non-optimal levels of entanglement and indistinguishability. For quantum networks, both criteria must be met simultaneously. Here, we show that this is possible with a system that has received limited attention so far: GaAs quantum dots. They can emit triggered polarization-entangled photons with high purity (g (2) (0) = 0.002±0.002), high indistinguishability (0.93±0.07 for 2 ns pulse separation) and high entanglement fidelity (0.94±0.01). Our results show that GaAs might be the material of choice for quantum-dot entanglement sources in future quantum technologies.

2018, Chen, Y., Zopf, M., Keil, R., Ding, F., Schmidt, O.G.

Many quantum photonic technologies require the efficient generation of entangled pairs of photons, but to date there have been few ways to produce them reliably. Sources based on parametric down conversion operate at very low efficiency per pulse due to the probabilistic generation process. Semiconductor quantum dots can emit single pairs of entangled photons deterministically but they fall short due to the extremely low-extraction efficiency. Strategies for extracting single photons from quantum dots, such as embedding them in narrowband optical cavities, are difficult to translate to entangled photons. Here, we build a broadband optical antenna with an extraction efficiency of 65% ± 4% and demonstrate a highly-efficient entangled-photon source by collecting strongly entangled photons (fidelity of 0.9) at a pair efficiency of 0.372 ± 0.002 per pulse. The high brightness achieved by our source represents a step forward in the development of optical quantum technologies.