Coherent Manipulation of Coupled Electron Spins in Semiconductor Quantum Dots

We demonstrated coherent control of a quantum two-level system based on two-electron spin states in a double quantum dot, allowing state preparation, coherent manipulation, and projective readout. These techniques are based on rapid electrical control of the exchange interaction. Separating and later recombining a singlet spin state provided a measurement of the spin dephasing time, T2*, of approximately 10 nanoseconds, limited by hyperfine interactions with the gallium arsenide host nuclei. Rabi oscillations of two-electron spin states were demonstrated, and spin-echo pulse sequences were used to suppress hyperfine-induced dephasing. Using these quantum control techniques, a coherence time for two-electron spin states exceeding 1 microsecond was observed.

An adiabatic quantum electron pump

A quantum pumping mechanism that produces dc current or voltage in response to a cyclic deformation of the confining potential in an open quantum dot is reported. The voltage produced at zero current bias is sinusoidal in the phase difference between the two ac voltages deforming the potential and shows random fluctuations in amplitude and direction with small changes in external parameters such as magnetic field. The amplitude of the pumping response increases linearly with the frequency of the deformation. Dependencies of pumping on the strength of the deformations, temperature, and breaking of time-reversal symmetry were also investigated.

Observation of the spin Hall effect in semiconductors

Electrically induced electron-spin polarization near the edges of a semiconductor channel was detected and imaged with the use of Kerr rotation microscopy. The polarization is out-of-plane and has opposite sign for the two edges, consistent with the predictions of the spin Hall effect. Measurements of unstrained gallium arsenide and strained indium gallium arsenide samples reveal that strain modifies spin accumulation at zero magnetic field. A weak dependence on crystal orientation for the strained samples suggests that the mechanism is the extrinsic spin Hall effect.

Triplet–singlet spin relaxation via nuclei in a double quantum dot

The spin of a confined electron, when oriented originally in some direction, will lose memory of that orientation after some time. Physical mechanisms leading to this relaxation of spin memory typically involve either coupling of the electron spin to its orbital motion or to nuclear spins. Relaxation of confined electron spin has been previously measured only for Zeeman or exchange split spin states, where spin-orbit effects dominate relaxation; spin flips due to nuclei have been observed in optical spectroscopy studies. Using an isolated GaAs double quantum dot defined by electrostatic gates and direct time domain measurements, we investigate in detail spin relaxation for arbitrary splitting of spin states. Here we show that electron spin flips are dominated by nuclear interactions and are slowed by several orders of magnitude when a magnetic field of a few millitesla is applied. These results have significant implications for spin-based information processing.

Macroscopically ordered state in an exciton system

There is a rich variety of quantum liquids -- such as superconductors, liquid helium and atom Bose-Einstein condensates -- that exhibit macroscopic coherence in the form of ordered arrays of vortices. Experimental observation of a macroscopically ordered electronic state in semiconductors has, however, remained a challenging and relatively unexplored problem. A promising approach for the realization of such a state is to use excitons, bound pairs of electrons and holes that can form in semiconductor systems. At low densities, excitons are Bose-particles, and at low temperatures, of the order of a few kelvin, excitons can form a quantum liquid -- that is, a statistically degenerate Bose gas or even a Bose-Einstein condensate. Here we report photoluminescence measurements of a quasi-two-dimensional exciton gas in GaAs/AlGaAs coupled quantum wells and the observation of a macroscopically ordered exciton state. Our spatially resolved measurements reveal fragmentation of the ring-shaped emission pattern into circular structures that form periodic arrays over lengths up to 1 mm.

Coherent spin manipulation without magnetic fields in strained semiconductors

A consequence of relativity is that in the presence of an electric field, the spin and momentum states of an electron can be coupled; this is known as spin-orbit coupling. Such an interaction opens a pathway to the manipulation of electron spins within non-magnetic semiconductors, in the absence of applied magnetic fields. This interaction has implications for spin-based quantum information processing and spintronics, forming the basis of various device proposals. For example, the concept of spin field-effect transistors is based on spin precession due to the spin-orbit coupling. Most studies, however, focus on non-spin-selective electrical measurements in quantum structures. Here we report the direct measurement of coherent electron spin precession in zero magnetic field as the electrons drift in response to an applied electric field. We use ultrafast optical techniques to spatiotemporally resolve spin dynamics in strained gallium arsenide and indium gallium arsenide epitaxial layers. Unexpectedly, we observe spin splitting in these simple structures arising from strain in the semiconductor films. The observed effect provides a flexible approach for enabling electrical control over electron spins using strain engineering. Moreover, we exploit this strain-induced field to electrically drive spin resonance with Rabi frequencies of up to approximately 30 MHz.

Tunable Nonlocal Spin Control in a Coupled-Quantum Dot System

The effective interaction between magnetic impurities in metals that can lead to various magnetic ground states often competes with a tendency for electrons near impurities to screen the local moment (known as the Kondo effect). The simplest system exhibiting the richness of this competition, the two-impurity Kondo system, was realized experimentally in the form of two quantum dots coupled through an open conducting region. We demonstrate nonlocal spin control by suppressing and splitting Kondo resonances in one quantum dot by changing the electron number and coupling of the other dot. The results suggest an approach to nonlocal spin control that may be relevant to quantum information processing.

The Coulomb Blockade in Coupled Quantum Dots

Individual quantum dots are often referred to as "artificial atoms." Two tunnel-coupled quantum dots can be considered an "artificial molecule." Low-temperature measurements were made on a series double quantum dot with adjustable interdot tunnel conductance that was fabricated in a gallium arsenide-aluminum gallium arsenide heterostructure. The Coulomb blockade was used to determine the ground-state charge configuration within the "molecule" as a function of the total charge on the double dot and the interdot polarization induced by electrostatic gates. As the tunnel conductance between the two dots is increased from near zero to 2e2/h (where e is the electron charge and h is Planck's constant), the measured conductance peaks of the double dot exhibit pronounced changes in agreement with many-body theory.

Coherent branched flow in a two-dimensional electron gas

Semiconductor nanostructures based on two-dimensional electron gases (2DEGs) could form the basis of future devices for sensing, information processing and quantum computation. Although electron transport in 2DEG nanostructures has been well studied, and many remarkable phenomena have already been discovered (for example, weak localization, quantum chaos, universal conductance fluctuations), fundamental aspects of the electron flow through these structures have so far not been clarified. However, it has recently become possible to image current directly through 2DEG devices using scanning probe microscope techniques. Here, we use such a technique to observe electron flow through a narrow constriction in a 2DEG-a quantum point contact. The images show that the electron flow from the point contact forms narrow, branching strands instead of smoothly spreading fans. Our theoretical study of this flow indicates that this branching of current flux is due to focusing of the electron paths by ripples in the background potential. The strands are decorated by interference fringes separated by half the Fermi wavelength, indicating the persistence of quantum mechanical phase coherence in the electron flow. These findings may have important implications for a better understanding of electron transport in 2DEGs and for the design of future nanostructure devices.

Towards Bose-Einstein condensation of excitons in potential traps

An exciton is an electron-hole bound pair in a semiconductor. In the low-density limit, it is a composite Bose quasi-particle, akin to the hydrogen atom. Just as in dilute atomic gases, reducing the temperature or increasing the exciton density increases the occupation numbers of the low-energy states leading to quantum degeneracy and eventually to Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC). Because the exciton mass is small--even smaller than the free electron mass--exciton BEC should occur at temperatures of about 1 K, many orders of magnitude higher than for atoms. However, it is in practice difficult to reach BEC conditions, as the temperature of excitons can considerably exceed that of the semiconductor lattice. The search for exciton BEC has concentrated on long-lived excitons: the exciton lifetime against electron-hole recombination therefore should exceed the characteristic timescale for the cooling of initially hot photo-generated excitons. Until now, all experiments on atom condensation were performed on atomic gases confined in the potential traps. Inspired by these experiments, and using specially designed semiconductor nanostructures, we have collected quasi-two-dimensional excitons in an in-plane potential trap. Our photoluminescence measurements show that the quasi-two-dimensional excitons indeed condense at the bottom of the traps, giving rise to a statistically degenerate Bose gas.

Ferromagnetic imprinting of nuclear spins in semiconductors

We examine how a ferromagnetic layer affects the coherent electron spin dynamics in a neighboring gallium arsenide semiconductor. Ultrafast optical pump-probe measurements reveal that the spin dynamics are unexpectedly dominated by hyperpolarized nuclear spins that align along the ferromagnet's magnetization. We find evidence that photoexcited carriers acquire spin-polarization from the ferromagnet, and dynamically polarize these nuclear spins. The resulting hyperfine fields are as high as 9000 gauss in small external fields (less than 1000 gauss), enabling ferromagnetic control of local electron spin coherence.

Imaging coherent electron flow from a quantum point contact

Scanning a charged tip above the two-dimensional electron gas inside a gallium arsenide/aluminum gallium arsenide nanostructure allows the coherent electron flow from the lowest quantized modes of a quantum point contact at liquid helium temperatures to be imaged. As the width of the quantum point contact is increased, its electrical conductance increases in quantized steps of 2 e(2)/h, where e is the electron charge and h is Planck's constant. The angular dependence of the electron flow on each step agrees with theory, and fringes separated by half the electron wavelength are observed. Placing the tip so that it interrupts the flow from particular modes of the quantum point contact causes a reduction in the conductance of those particular conduction channels below 2 e(2)/h without affecting other channels.

Rapid single-shot measurement of a singlet-triplet qubit

We report repeated single-shot measurements of the two-electron spin state in a GaAs double quantum dot. The readout allows measurement with a fidelity above 90% with a approximately 7 micros cycle time. Hyperfine-induced precession between singlet and triplet states of the two-electron system are directly observed, as nuclear Overhauser fields are quasistatic on the time scale of the measurement cycle. Repeated measurements on millisecond to second time scales reveal the evolution of the nuclear environment.

Quantum coherence in a one-electron semiconductor charge qubit

We study quantum coherence in a semiconductor charge qubit formed from a GaAs double quantum dot containing a single electron. Voltage pulses are applied to depletion gates to drive qubit rotations and noninvasive state readout is achieved using a quantum point contact charge detector. We measure a maximum coherence time of ∼7 ns at the charge degeneracy point, where the qubit level splitting is first-order insensitive to gate voltage fluctuations. We compare measurements of the coherence time as a function of detuning with numerical simulations and predictions from a 1/f noise model.