We consider a double quantum dot in the Pauli blockade regime interacting with a nearby single spin. We show that under microwave irradiation the average electron occupations of the dots exhibit resonances that are sensitive to the state of the nearby spin. The system thus acts as a spin meter for the nearby spin. We investigate the conditions for a non-demolition read-out of the spin and find that the meter works at temperatures comparable to the dot charging energy and sensitivity is mainly limited by the intradot spin relaxation.
We use a double quantum dot as a frequency-tunable on-chip microwave detector to investigate the radiation from electron shot-noise in a near-by quantum point contact. The device is realized by monitoring the inelastic tunneling of electrons between the quantum dots due to photon absorption. The frequency of the absorbed radiation is set by the energy separation between the dots, which is easily tuned with gate voltages. Using time-resolved charge detection techniques, we can directly relate the detection of a tunneling electron to the absorption of a single photon.
A most fundamental and longstanding goal in spintronics is to electrically tune highly efficient spin injectors and detectors, preferably compatible with nanoscale electronics. Here, we demonstrate all these points using semiconductor quantum dots (QDs), individually spin-polarized by ferromagnetic split-gates (FSGs). As a proof of principle, we fabricated a double QD spin valve consisting of two weakly coupled semiconducting QDs in an InAs nanowire (NW), each with independent FSGs that can be magnetized in parallel or anti-parallel. In tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) experiments at zero external magnetic field, we find a strongly reduced spin valve conductance for the two anti-parallel configurations, with a single QD polarization of $sim 27%$. The TMR can be significantly improved by a small external field and optimized gate voltages, which results in a continuously electrically tunable TMR between $+80%$ and $-90%$. A simple model quantitatively reproduces all our findings, suggesting a gate tunable QD polarization of $pm 80%$. Such versatile spin-polarized QDs are suitable for various applications, for example in spin projection and correlation experiments in a large variety of nanoelectronics experiments.
The compound semiconductor gallium arsenide (GaAs) provides an ultra-clean platform for storing and manipulating quantum information, encoded in the charge or spin states of electrons confined in nanostructures. The absence of inversion symmetry in the zinc-blende crystal structure of GaAs however, results in strong piezoelectric coupling between lattice acoustic phonons and electrons, a potential hindrance for quantum computing architectures that can be charge-sensitive during certain operations. Here we examine phonon generation in a GaAs double dot, configured as a single- or two-electron charge qubit, and driven by the application of microwaves via surface gates. In a process that is a microwave analog of the Raman effect, stimulated phonon emission is shown to produce population inversion of a two-level system and provides spectroscopic signatures of the phononic environment created by the nanoscale device geometry.
In a recent paper published in this Journal, Khordad and collaborators [J Low Temp Phys (2018) 190:200] have studied the thermodynamics properties of a GaAs double ring-shaped quantum dot under external magnetic and electric fields. In that meritorious research the energy of system was obtained by solving the Schr{o}dinger equation. The radial equation was mapped into a confluent hypergeometric differential equation and the differential equation associated to $z$ coordinate was mapped into a biconfluent Heun differential equation. In this paper, it is pointed out a misleading treatment on the solution of the biconfluent Heun equation. It is shown that the energy $E_{z}$ can not be labeled with $n_{z}$ and this fact jeopardizes the results of this system. We calculate the partition function with the correct energy spectrum and recalculate the specific heat and entropy as a function of low and high temperatures.
Vacuum Rabi splitting is observed in a coupled qubit-resonator system consisting of a GaAs double quantum dot and a coplanar waveguide resonator. Derived values of the qubit-resonator coupling strength and the decoherence rate indicate strong coupling, which assures distinct vacuum Rabi oscillation in the system. The amplitude of decoherence is reasonably interpreted in terms of the coupling of electrons to piezoelectric acoustic phonons in GaAs.