No Arabic abstract
We present data on the electrical transport properties of highly-doped silicon-on-insulator quantum dots under the effect of pulsed magnetic fields up to 48 T. At low field intensities, B<7 T, we observe a strong modification of the conductance due to the destruction of weak localization whereas at higher fields, where the magnetic field length becomes comparable to the effective Bohr radius of phosphorous in silicon, a strong decrease in conductance is demonstrated. Data in the high and low electric field bias regimes are then compared to show that close to the Coulomb blockade edge magnetically-induced quenching to single donors in the quantum dot is achieved at about 40 T.
Silicon quantum dots are considered an excellent platform for spin qubits, partly due to their weak spin-orbit interaction. However, the sharp interfaces in the heterostructures induce a small but significant spin-orbit interaction which degrade the performance of the qubits or, when understood and controlled, could be used as a powerful resource. To understand how to control this interaction we build a detailed profile of the spin-orbit interaction of a silicon metal-oxide-semiconductor double quantum dot system. We probe the derivative of the Stark shift, $g$-factor and $g$-factor difference for two single-electron quantum dot qubits as a function of external magnetic field and find that they are dominated by spin-orbit interactions originating from the vector potential, consistent with recent theoretical predictions. Conversely, by populating the double dot with two electrons we probe the mixing of singlet and spin-polarized triplet states during electron tunneling, which we conclude is dominated by momentum-term spin-orbit interactions that varies from 1.85 MHz up to 27.5 MHz depending on the magnetic field orientation. Finally, we exploit the tunability of the derivative of the Stark shift of one of the dots to reduce its sensitivity to electric noise and observe an 80 % increase in $T_2^*$. We conclude that the tuning of the spin-orbit interaction will be crucial for scalable quantum computing in silicon and that the optimal setting will depend on the exact mode of qubit operations used.
We have observed a negative differential conductance with singular gate and source-drain bias dependences in a phosphorus-doped silicon quantum dot. Its origin is discussed within the framework of weak localization. By measuring the current-voltage characteristics at different temperatures as well as simulating the tunneling rates dependences on energy, we demonstrate that the presence of shallow energy defects together with an enhancement of localization satisfactory explain our observations. Effects observed in magnetic fields are also discussed.
Using different techniques, and Fermi-liquid relationships, we calculate the variation with applied magnetic field (up to second order) of the zero-temperature equilibrium conductance through a quantum dot described by the impurity Anderson model. We focus on the strong-coupling limit $U gg Delta$ where $U$ is the Coulomb repulsion and $Delta$ is half the resonant-level width, and consider several values of the dot level energy $E_d$, ranging from the Kondo regime $epsilon_F-E_d gg Delta$ to the intermediate-valence regime $epsilon_F-E_d sim Delta$, where $epsilon_F$ is the Fermi energy. We have mainly used density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) and numerical renormalization group (NRG) combined with renormalized perturbation theory (RPT). Results for the dot occupancy and magnetic susceptibility from DMRG and NRG+RPT are compared with the corresponding Bethe ansatz results for $U rightarrow infty$, showing an excellent agreement once $E_d$ is renormalized by a constant Haldane shift. For $U < 3 Delta$ a simple perturbative approach in $U$ agrees very well with the other methods. The conductance decreases with applied magnetic field for dot occupancies $n_d sim 1$ and increases for $n_d sim 0.5$ or $n_d sim 1.5$ regardless of the value of $U$. We also relate the energy scale for the magnetic-field dependence of the conductance with the width of low energy peak in the spectral density of the dot.
We present a microscopic theory of the optical properties of self-assembled quantum dots doped with a single magnetic manganese (Mn) impurity and containing a controlled number of electrons. The single-particle electron and heavy-hole electronic shells are described by two-dimensional harmonic oscillators. The electron-electron, electron-hole Coulomb as well as the short-range electron spin-Mn spin and hole spin-Mn spin contact exchange interactions are included. The electronic states of the photo-excited electron-hole-Mn complex and of the final electron-Mn complex are expanded in a finite number of configurations and the full interacting Hamiltonian is diagonalized numerically. The emission spectrum is predicted as a function of photon energy for a given number of electrons and different number of confined electronic quantum dot shells. We show how emission spectra allow to identify the number of electronic shells, the number of electrons populating these shells and, most importantly, their spin. We show that electrons not interacting directly with the spin of Mn ion do so via electron-electron interactions. This indirect interaction is a strong effect even when Mn impurity is away from the quantum dot center.
We investigate spin relaxation in a silicon double quantum dot via leakage current through Pauli blockade as a function of interdot detuning and magnetic field. A dip in leakage current as a function of magnetic field on a sim 40 mT field scale is attributed to spin-orbit mediated spin relaxation. On a larger (sim 400 mT) field scale, a peak in leakage current is seen in some, but not all, Pauli-blocked transitions, and is attributed to spin-flip cotunneling. Both dip and peak structure show good agreement between theory and experiment.