No Arabic abstract
We present a stochastic thermodynamics analysis of an electron-spin-resonance pumped quantum dot device in the Coulomb-blocked regime, where a pure spin current is generated without an accompanying net charge current. Based on a generalized quantum master equation beyond secular approximation, quantum coherences are accounted for in terms of an effective average spin in the Floquet basis. Elegantly, this effective spin undergoes a precession about an effective magnetic field, which originates from the non-secular treatment and energy renormalization. It is shown that the interaction between effective spin and effective magnetic field may have the dominant roles to play in both energy transport and irreversible entropy production. In the stationary limit, the energy and entropy balance relations are also established based on the theory of counting statistics.
We show that the fraction of time a thermodynamic current spends above its average value follows the arcsine law, a prominent result obtained by Levy for Brownian motion. Stochastic currents with long streaks above or below their average are much more likely than those that spend similar fractions of time above and below their average. Our result is confirmed with experimental data from a Brownian Carnot engine. We also conjecture that two other random times associated with currents obey the arcsine law: the time a current reaches its maximum value and the last time a current crosses its average value. These results apply to, inter alia, molecular motors, quantum dots and colloidal systems.
We propose a scheme to efficiently couple a single quantum dot electron spin to an optical nano-cavity, which enables us to simultaneously benefit from a cavity as an efficient photonic interface, as well as to perform high fidelity (nearly 100%) spin initialization and manipulation achievable in bulk semiconductors. Moreover, the presence of the cavity speeds up the spin initialization process beyond GHz.
We experimentally study negative fluctuations of stochastic entropy production in an electronic double dot operating in nonequilibrium steady-state conditions. We record millions of random electron tunneling events at different bias points, thus collecting extensive statistics. We show that for all bias voltages the experimental average values of the minima of stochastic entropy production lie above $-k_B$, where $k_B$ is the Boltzmann constant, in agreement with recent theoretical predictions for nonequilibrium steady states. Furthermore, we also demonstrate that the experimental cumulative distribution of the entropy production minima is bounded, at all times and for all bias voltages, by a universal expression predicted by the theory. We also extend our theory by deriving a general bound for the average value of the maximum heat absorbed by a mesoscopic system from the environment and compare this result with experimental data. Finally, we show by numerical simulations that these results are not necessarily valid under non-stationary conditions.
Electron states in a inhomogeneous Ge/Si quantum dot array with groups of closely spaced quantum dots were studied by conventional continuous wave ($cw$) ESR and spin-echo methods. We find that the existence of quantum dot groups allows to increase the spin relaxation time in the system. Created structures allow us to change an effective localization radius of electrons by external magnetic field. With the localization radius close to the size of a quantum dot group, we obtain fourfold increasing spin relaxation time $T_1$, as compared to conventional homogeneous quantum dot arrays. This effect is attributed to averaging of local magnetic fields related to nuclear spins $^{29}$Si and stabilization of $S_z$-polarization during electron back-and-forth motion within a quantum dot group.
Electron spins in semiconductor quantum dots are good candidates of quantum bits for quantum information processing. Basic operations of the qubit have been realized in recent years: initialization, manipulation of single spins, two qubit entanglement operations, and readout. Now it becomes crucial to demonstrate scalability of this architecture by conducting spin operations on a scaled up system. Here, we demonstrate single-electron spin resonance in a quadruple quantum dot. A few-electron quadruple quantum dot is formed within a magnetic field gradient created by a micro-magnet. We oscillate the wave functions of the electrons in the quantum dots by applying microwave voltages and this induces electron spin resonance. The resonance energies of the four quantum dots are slightly different because of the stray field created by the micro-magnet and therefore frequency-resolved addressable control of the electron spin resonance is possible.