  A semiconductor quantum dot can generate highly coherent and
indistinguishable single photons. However, intrinsic semiconductor dephasing
mechanisms can reduce the visibility of two-photon interference. For an
electron in a quantum dot, a fundamental dephasing process is the hyperfine
interaction with the nuclear spin bath. Here we directly probe the consequence
of the fluctuating nuclear spins on the elastic and inelastic scattered photon
spectra from a resident electron in a single dot. We find the nuclear spin
fluctuations lead to detuned Raman scattered photons which are distinguishable
from both the elastic and incoherent components of the resonance fluorescence.
This significantly reduces two-photon interference visibility. However, we
demonstrate successful screening of the nuclear spin noise which enables the
generation of coherent single photons that exhibit high visibility two-photon
interference.
