Condensed Matter Theory - Vitaly Golovach (Vitaly N. Golovach)

We study theoretically electron spins in nanowire quantum dots placed inside a transmission line resonator. Because of the spin-orbit interaction, the spins couple to the electric component of the resonator electromagnetic field and enable coherent manipulation, storage, and read-out of quantum information in an all-electrical fashion. Coupling between distant quantum-dot spins, in one and the same or different nanowires, can be efficiently performed via the resonator mode either in real time or through virtual processes. For the latter case we derive an effective spin-entangling interaction and suggest means to turn it on and off. We consider both transverse and longitudinal types of nanowire quantum-dots and compare their manipulation timescales against the spin relaxation times. For this, we evaluate the rates for spin relaxation induced by the nanowire vibrations (phonons) and show that, as a result of phonon confinement in the nanowire, this rate is a strongly varying function of the spin operation frequency and thus can be drastically reduced compared to lateral quantum dots in GaAs. Our scheme is a step forward to the formation of hybrid structures where qubits of different nature can be integrated in a single device.

We study spin relaxation in a two-electron quantum dot in the vicinity of the singlet-triplet transition. The spin relaxation occurs due to a combined effect of the spin-orbit, Zeeman, and electron-phonon interactions. The singlet-triplet relaxation rates exhibit strong variations as a function of the singlet-triplet splitting. We show that the Coulomb interaction between the electrons has two competing effects on the singlet-triplet spin relaxation. One effect is to enhance the relative strength of spin-orbit coupling in the quantum dot, resulting in larger spin-orbit splittings and thus in a stronger coupling of spin to charge. The other effect is to make the charge density profiles of the singlet and triplet look similar to each other, thus diminishing the ability of charge environments to discriminate between singlet and triplet states. We thus find essentially different channels of singlet-triplet relaxation for the case of strong and weak Coulomb interaction. Finally, for the linear in momentum Dresselhaus and Rashba spin-orbit interactions, we calculate the singlet-triplet relaxation rates to leading order in the spin-orbit interaction, and find that they are proportional to the second power of the Zeeman energy, in agreement with recent experiments on triplet-to-singlet relaxation in quantum dots.

We demonstrate control of the electron number down to the last electron in tunable few-electron quantum dots defined in catalytically grown InAs nanowires. Using low temperature transport spectroscopy in the Coulomb blockade regime we propose a simple method to directly determine the magnitude of the spin-orbit interaction in a two-electron artificial atom with strong spin-orbit coupling. Due to a large effective g-factor |g*|=8+/-1 the transition from singlet S to triplet T+ groundstate with increasing magnetic field is dominated by the Zeeman energy rather than by orbital effects. We find that the spin-orbit coupling mixes the T+ and S states and thus induces an avoided crossing with magnitude $\Delta_{SO}$=0.25+/-0.05 meV. This allows us to calculate the spin-orbit length $\lambda_{SO}\approx$127 nm in such systems using a simple model.

We study the spin-spin coupling between two single-electron quantum dots due to the Coulomb and spin-orbit interactions, in the absence of tunneling between the dots. We find an anisotropic XY spin-spin interaction that is proportional to the Zeeman splitting produced by the external magnetic field. This interaction is studied both in the limit of weak and strong Coulomb repulsion with respect to the level spacing of the dot. The interaction is found to be a non-monotonic function of inter-dot distance a₀ and external magnetic field, and, moreover, vanishes for some special values of a₀ and/or magnetic field orientation. This mechanism thus provides a new way to generate and tune spin interaction between quantum dots. We propose a scheme to measure this spin-spin interaction based on the spin-relaxation-measurement technique.

In this review we discuss a recent proposal to perform partial Bell-state (parity) measurements on two-electron spin states for electrons confined to quantum dots. The realization of this proposal would allow for a physical implementation of measurement-based quantum computing. In addition, we consider the primary sources of energy relaxation and decoherence which provide the ultimate limit to all proposals for quantum information processing using electron spins in quantum dots. We give an account of the Hamiltonians used for the most important interactions (spin-orbit and hyperfine) and survey some of the recent work done to understand dynamics, control, and decoherence under the action of these Hamiltonians. We conclude the review with a table of important decay times found in experiment, and relate these time scales to the potential viability of measurement-based quantum computing.

An alternating electric field, applied to a quantum dot, couples to the electron spin via the spin-orbit interaction. We analyze different types of spin-orbit coupling known in the literature and find two efficient mechanisms of spin control in quantum dots. The linear in momentum Dresselhaus and Rashba spin-orbit couplings give rise to a fully transverse effective magnetic field in the presence of a Zeeman splitting at lowest order in the spin-orbit interaction. The cubic in momentum Dresselhaus terms are efficient in a quantum dot with non-harmonic confining potential and give rise to a spin-electric coupling proportional to the orbital magnetic field. We derive an effective spin Hamiltonian, which can be used to implement spin manipulation on a timescale of 10 ns with the current experimental setups.

We consider a mechanism of spin decay for an electron spin in a quantum dot due to coupling to a nearby quantum point contact (QPC) with and without an applied bias voltage. The coupling of spin to charge is induced by the spin-orbit interaction in the presence of a magnetic field. We perform a microscopic calculation of the effective Hamiltonian coupling constants to obtain the QPC-induced spin relaxation and decoherence rates in a realistic system. This rate is shown to be proportional to the shot noise of the QPC in the regime of large bias voltage and scales as a^-6 where a is the distance between the quantum dot and the QPC. We find that, for some specific orientations of the setup with respect to the crystallographic axes, the QPC-induced spin relaxation and decoherence rates vanish, while the charge sensitivity of the QPC is not changed. This result can be used in experiments to minimize QPC-induced spin decay in read-out schemes.

We study spin relaxation and decoherence in a GaAs quantum dot due to spin-orbit interaction. We derive an effective Hamiltonian which couples the electron spin to phonons or any other fluctuation of the dot potential. We show that the spin decoherence time T₂ is as large as the spin relaxation time T₁, under realistic conditions. For the Dresselhaus and Rashba spin-orbit couplings, we find that, in leading order, the effective magnetic field can have only fluctuations transverse to the applied magnetic field. As a result, T₂=2T₁ for arbitrarily large Zeeman splittings, in contrast to the naively expected case T₂ << T₁. We show that the spin decay is drastically suppressed for certain magnetic field directions and values of the Rashba coupling constant. Finally, for the spin coupling to acoustic phonons, we show that T₂=2T₁ for all spin-orbit mechanisms in leading order in the electron-phonon interaction.

We study transport through a double quantum dot, both in the sequential tunneling and cotunneling regimes. Using a master equation approach, we find that, in the sequential tunneling regime, the differential conductance G as a function of the bias voltage Dm has a number of satellite peaks with respect to the main peak of the Coulomb blockade diamond. The position of these peaks is related to the interdot tunnel splitting and the singlet-triplet splitting. We find satellite peaks with both positive and negative values of differential conductance for realistic parameter regimes. Relating our theory to a microscopic (Hund-Mulliken) model for the double dot, we find a temperature regime for which the Hubbard ratio (=tunnel coupling over on-site Coulomb repulsion) can be extracted from G(Dm) in the cotunneling regime. In addition, we consider a combined effect of cotunneling and sequential tunneling, which leads to new peaks (dips) in G(Dm) inside the Coulomb blockade diamond below some temperature scales, which we specify.

We consider electron spin qubits in quantum dots and define a measurement efficiency e to characterize reliable measurements via n-shot read outs. We propose various implementations based on a double dot and quantum point contact (QPC) and show that the associated efficiencies e vary between 50% and 100%, allowing single-shot read out in the latter case. We model the read out microscopically and derive its time dynamics in terms of a generalized master equation, calculate the QPC current and show that it allows spin read out under realistic conditions.

We review our recent contributions on shot noise for entangled electrons and spin-polarized currents in novel mesoscopic geometries. We first discuss some of our recent proposals for electron entanglers involving a superconductor coupled to a double dot in the Coulomb blockade regime, a superconductor tunnel-coupled to Luttinger-liquid leads, and a triple-dot setup coupled to Fermi leads. We calculate current and shot noise for spin-polarized currents and entangled/unentangled electron pairs in a beam-splitter geometry with a local Rashba spin-orbit (s-o) interaction in the incoming leads. We find continuous bunching and antibunching behaviors for the entangled pairs -- triplet and singlet -- as a function of the Rashba rotation angle. In addition, we find that unentangled triplets and the entangled one exhibit distinct shot noise. Shot noise for spin-polarized currents shows sizable oscillations as a function of the Rashba phase. This happens only for electrons injected perpendicular to the Rashba rotation axis; spin-polarized carriers along the Rashba axis are noiseless. We find an additional spin rotation for electrons with energies near the crossing of the bands where s-o induced interband coupling is relevant. This gives rise to an additional modulation of the noise for both electron pairs and spin-polarized currents. Finally, we briefly discuss shot noise for a double dot near the Kondo regime.

Achieving control over the electron spin in quantum dots (artificial atoms) or real atoms promises access to new technologies in conventional and in quantum information processing. Here we review our proposal for quantum computing with spins of electrons confined to quantum dots. We discuss the basic requirements for implementing spin-qubits, and describe a complete set of quantum gates for single- and two-qubit operations. We show how a quantum dot attached to leads can be used for spin filtering and spin read-out, and as a spin-memory device. Finally, we focus on the experimental characterization of the quantum dot systems, and discuss transport properties of a double-dot and show how Kondo correlations can be used to measure the Heisenberg exchange interaction between the spins of two dots.

We study two tunnel-coupled quantum dots each with a spin 1/2 and attached to leads in the Coulomb blockade regime. We study the interplay between Kondo correlations and the singlet-triplet exchange splitting K between the two spins. We calculate the cotunneling current with elastic and inelastic contributions and its renormalization due to Kondo correlations, away and at the degeneracy point K=0. We show that these Kondo correlations induce pronounced peaks in the conductance as function of magnetic field B, inter-dot coupling t₀, and temperature. Moreover, the long-range part of the Coulomb interaction becomes visibile due to Kondo correlations resulting in an additional peak in the conductance vs t₀ with a strong B-field dependence. These conductance peaks thus provide direct experimental access to K, and thus to a crucial control parameter for spin-based qubits and entanglement.

We predict a double-resonant feature in the magnetic field dependence of the phonon-mediated longitudinal conductivity s_xx of a two-subband quasi-two-dimensional electron system in a quantizing magnetic field. The two sharp peaks in s_xx appear when the energy separation between two Landau levels belonging to different size-quantization subbands is favorable for acoustic-phonon transitions. One-phonon and two-phonon mechanisms of electron conductivity are calculated and mutually compared. The phonon-mediated interaction between the intersecting Landau levels is considered and no avoided crossing is found at thermal equilibrium.

The electron and hole spectra in a superlattice of cylindrical quantum wires are calculated by the augmented-plane-wave method. The energy component due to the motion of quasiparticles in a direction perpendicular to the long axis of a wire consists of an alternation of bands with positive and negative effective mass. The potential of the quantum-wire superlattice lifts the degeneracy with respect to the magnetic quantum number away from the G point of the Brillouin zone. The energies of the main bands are investigated as functions of the radius of the quantum wires and the distance between wires for planar motion of quasiparticles.

The mechanism of oscillations of the half-width and intensity of the cyclotron resonance (CR) line of electrons in a semimetal quantum well based on an InAs/AlSb/GaSb heterostructure is investigated experimentally and theoretically. It is shown that the oscillations of the CR spectrum are due to mixing of states of the spatially separated two-dimensional electrons and holes.

Address:	Office 422 Ludwig Maximilians Universität Arnold Sommerfeld Center, LS v. Delft Theresienstraße 37 D-80333 München, Germany
email:	Vitaly.Golovach@physik.lmu.de
phone:	+49 (0)89 2180 4525
fax:	+49 (0)89 2180 4155
webpage:	http://homepages.physik.uni-muenchen.de/~golovach

Vitaly Golovach, Dr.

Publications

Rabi flopping

Double Dot

Shell scripts