No Arabic abstract
By means of time-resolved optical orientation under strong optical pumping, the k-dependence of the electron spin-flip time (t_sf) in undoped GaAs is experimentally determined. t_sf monotonically decreases by more than one order of magnitude when the electron kinetic energy varies from 2 to 30 meV. At the high excitation densities and low temperatures of the reported experiments the main spin-flip mechanism of the conduction band electrons is the Bir-Aronov-Pikus. By means of Monte-Carlo simulations we evidence that phase-space filling effects result in the blocking of the spin flip, yielding an increase of t_sf with excitation density. These effects obtain values of t_sf up to 30 ns at k=0, the longest reported spin-relaxation time in undoped GaAs in the absence of a magnetic field.
We investigate the full counting statistics (FCS) of spin-conserving and spin-flip charge transitions in Pauli-spin blockade regime of a GaAs double quantum dot. A theoretical model is proposed to evaluate all spin-conserving and spin-flip tunnel rates, and to demonstrate the fundamental relation between FCS and waiting time distribution. We observe the remarkable features of parity effect and a tail structure in the constructed FCS, which do not appear in the Poisson distribution, and are originated from spin degeneracy and coexistence of slow and fast transitions, respectively. This study is potentially useful for elucidating the spin-related and other complex transition dynamics in quantum systems.
Optical orientation experiments have been performed in GaAs epilayers with photoexcitation energies in the 3 eV region yielding the photogeneration of spin-polarized electrons in the satellite L valley. We demonstrate that a significant fraction of the electron spin memory can be conserved when the electron is scattered from the L to the $Gamma$ valley following an energy relaxation of several hundreds of meV. Combining these high energy photo-excitation experiments with time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy of $Gamma$ valley spin-polarized photogenerated electrons allows us to deduce a typical L valley electron spin relaxation time of 200 fs, in agreement with theoretical calculations.
Spin-polarized transport of photo-electrons in bulk, p-type GaAs is investigated in the Pauli blockade regime. In contrast to usual spin diffusion processes in which the spin polarization decreases with distance traveled due to spin relaxation, images of the polarized photo-luminescence reveal a spin-filter effect in which the spin polarization increases during transport over the first 2 microns from 26 % to 38 %. This is shown to be a direct consequence of the Pauli Principle and the associated quantum degeneracy pressure which results in a spin-dependent increase in the minority carrier diffusion constants and mobilities. The central role played by the quantum degeneracy pressure is confirmed via the observation of a spin-dependent increase in the photo-electron volume and a spin-charge coupling description of this is presented.
We demonstrate double quantum dots fabricated in undoped Si/SiGe heterostructures relying on a double top-gated design. Charge sensing shows that we can reliably deplete these devices to zero charge occupancy. Measurements and simulations confirm that the energetics are determined by the gate-induced electrostatic potentials. Pauli spin blockade has been observed via transport through the double dot in the two electron configuration, a critical step in performing coherent spin manipulations in Si.
We present experimental data and associated theory for correlations in a series of experiments involving repeated Landau-Zener sweeps through the crossing point of a singlet state and a spin aligned triplet state in a GaAs double quantum dot containing two conduction electrons, which are loaded in the singlet state before each sweep, and the final spin is recorded after each sweep. The experiments reported here measure correlations on time scales from 4 $mu$s to 2 ms. When the magnetic field is aligned in a direction such that spin-orbit coupling cannot cause spin flips, the correlation spectrum has prominent peaks centered at zero frequency and at the differences of the Larmor frequencies of the nuclei, on top of a frequency-independent background. When the spin-orbit field is relevant, there are additional peaks, centered at the frequencies of the individual species. A theoretical model which neglects the effects of high-frequency charge noise correctly predicts the positions of the observed peaks, and gives a reasonably accurate prediction of the size of the frequency-independent background, but gives peak areas that are larger than the observed areas by a factor of two or more. The observed peak widths are roughly consistent with predictions based on nuclear dephasing times of the order of 60 $mu$s. However, there is extra weight at the lowest observed frequencies, which suggests the existence of residual correlations on the scale of 2 ms. We speculate on the source of these discrepancies.