Nonlinear ground-state absorption observed in a single quantum dot

We report level bleaching in the ground state of a single In_0.5Ga_0.5As quantum dot. This behavior arises from the nonlinear absorption of a single quantum state. The level bleaching is observed in terms of a saturation of the photocurrent with increasing excitation power under the condition of resonant excitation in the quantum dot ground state. Furthermore, the photocurrent saturation is put down to a fundamental rate equation model. The steady-state solutions are in good agreement with the experimentally observed power dependence of the photocurrent.