No Arabic abstract
We report the dispersive readout of the spin state of a double quantum dot formed at the corner states of a silicon nanowire field-effect transistor. Two face-to-face top-gate electrodes allow us to independently tune the charge occupation of the quantum dot system down to the few-electron limit. We measure the charge stability of the double quantum dot in DC transport as well as dispersively via in-situ gate-based radio frequency reflectometry, where one top-gate electrode is connected to a resonator. The latter removes the need for external charge sensors in quantum computing architectures and provides a compact way to readout the dispersive shift caused by changes in the quantum capacitance during interdot charge transitions. Here, we observe Pauli spin-blockade in the high-frequency response of the circuit at finite magnetic fields between singlet and triplet states. The blockade is lifted at higher magnetic fields when intra-dot triplet states become the ground state configuration. A lineshape analysis of the dispersive phase shift reveals furthermore an intradot valley-orbit splitting $Delta_{vo}$ of 145 $mu$eV. Our results open up the possibility to operate compact CMOS technology as a singlet-triplet qubit and make split-gate silicon nanowire architectures an ideal candidate for the study of spin dynamics.
We investigate the mechanisms responsible for the low-frequency noise in liquid-gated nano-scale silicon nanowire field-effect transistors (SiNW-FETs) and show that the charge-noise level is lower than elementary charge. Our measurements also show that ionic strength of the surrounding electrolyte has a minimal effect on the overall noise. Dielectric polarization noise seems to be at the origin of the 1/f noise in our devices. The estimated spectral density of charge noise Sq = 1.6x10-2 e/sqr(Hz) at 10 Hz opens the door to metrological studies with these SiNW-FETs for the electrical detection of a small number of molecules.
We measure transport at finite bias through a double quantum dot formed by top-gates in an InAs nanowire. Pauli spin-bockade is confirmed with several electrons in the dot. This is expected due to the small exchange interactions in InAs and the large singlet-triplet splitting, which can be measured and tuned by a gate voltage.
We present measurements of resonant tunneling through discrete energy levels of a silicon double quantum dot formed in a thin silicon-on-insulator layer. In the absence of piezoelectric phonon coupling, spontaneous phonon emission with deformation-potential coupling accounts for inelastic tunneling through the ground states of the two dots. Such transport measurements enable us to observe a Pauli spin blockade due to effective two-electron spin-triplet correlations, evident in a distinct bias-polarity dependence of resonant tunneling through the ground states. The blockade is lifted by the excited-state resonance by virtue of efficient phonon emission between the ground states. Our experiment demonstrates considerable potential for investigating silicon-based spin dynamics and spin-based quantum information processing.
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.
We investigate a silicon single-electron transistor (SET) in a metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) structure by applying a magnetic field perpendicular to the sample surface. The quantum dot is defined electrostatically in a point contact channel and by the potential barriers from negatively charged interface traps. The magnetic field dependence of the excitation spectrum is primarily driven by the Zeeman effect. In the two-electron singlet-triplet (ST) transition, electron-electron Coulomb interaction plays a significant role. The evolution of Coulomb blockade peaks with magnetic field B is also owing to the Zeeman splitting with no obvious orbital effect up to 9 T. The filling pattern shows an alternate spin-up-spin-down sequence. The amplitude spectroscopy allows for the observation of the spin blockade effect, where the two-electron system forms a singlet state at low fields, and the spin polarized injection from the lead reduces the tunneling conductance by a factor of 8. At a higher magnetic field, due to the ST transition, the spin blockade effect is lifted and the conductance is fully recovered.