Energy transition in an artificial atom attained using laser light

Researchers from Basel and Bochum have succeeded in addressing an apparently unattainable energy transition in an artificial atom using laser light. Making use of the so-called radiative Auger process, they were the first team to specifically excite it. In this process, an electron falls from a higher to a lower energy level and, as a result, emits its energy partly in the form of light and partly by transferring it to another electron. The artificial atoms are narrowly defined areas in semiconductors that could one day form the basis for quantum communication. The findings are described by the team from the University of Basel and Ruhr-Universität Bochum together with colleagues from Münster and Wroclaw in Nature Communications, published online on 12 November 2021.