Electrically driven single-electron spin resonance in a slanting Zeeman field

Abstract

The rapid rise of spintronics and quantum information science has led to a strong interest in developing the ability to coherently manipulate electron spins 1 . Electron spin resonance 2 is a powerful technique for manipulating spins that is commonly achieved by applying an oscillating magnetic field. However, the technique has proven very challenging when addressing individual spins 3-5 . In contrast, by mixing the spin and charge degrees of freedom in a controlled way through engineered non-uniform magnetic fields, electron spin can be manipulated electrically without the need of high-frequency magnetic fields 6,7 . Here we report experiments in which electrically driven addressable spin rotations on two individual electrons were realized by integrating a micrometre-size ferromagnet into a double-quantum-dot device. We find that it is the stray magnetic field of the micromagnet that enables the electrical control and spin selectivity. The results suggest that our approach can be tailored to multidot architecture and therefore could open an avenue towards manipulating electron spins electrically in a scalable way.Magnetic resonance was recently used to coherently manipulate the spin of a single electron 5 in a semiconductor structure, called a quantum dot 8,9 , whose tally of electrons can be tuned one by one, down to a single charge 10,11 . However, producing strong and localized oscillating magnetic fields, which is a necessary step for addressing individual spins, is technically demanding. It involves on-chip coils 5,12 , relatively bulky to couple with a single spin, dissipating a significant amount of heat close to the electrons, whose temperature must not exceed a few decikelvins. In comparison, strong and local electric fields can be generated by simply exciting a tiny gate electrode nearby the target spin with low-level voltages. For scalability purposes, it is therefore highly desirable to manipulate electron spins with electric fields instead of magnetic fields.To benefit from the advantages of electrical excitation, a mediating mechanism must be in place to couple the electric field to the electron spin, which usually responds only to magnetic fields. Spin-orbit coupling 13,14 , hyperfine interaction 15 and g-factor modulation 16 work as the mediating mechanism, which attract interest for their physical origins but necessitate refinement in terms of both manipulation speed and scalability. Instead, we controllably mix the spin and charge degrees of freedom in a magnetic-field gradient 6 , very much like the Stern-Gerlach effect 17 . This allows for greater flexibility, because the method is applicable to any semiconductor material. In addition, the magnetic field profile can be engineered to enable the selective manipulation of several spins using a single electrode.Thereby, we demonstrate addressable voltage-driven singlespin electron spin resonance (ESR) in a magnetic-field gradient. Two electrons are confined and spatially separated from each other in a gate-defined double quantum dot 18 (Fig. 1a)...

Circuit quantum electrodynamics with a spin qubit

“…InAs could also be replaced by Ge/Si core/shell nanowires where hole spin-orbit coupling is predicted to be large [31]. Resonators can also be coupled to nuclear-spin-free Si/SiGe quantum dots by using micromagnets to create artificial spin-orbit fields [32]. Based on our results we anticipate that the strong coupling regime for single spins can be reached, eventually allowing spin qubits to be interconnected in a quantum bus architecture.…”

Universal quantum control of two-electron spin quantum bits using dynamic nuclear polarization

“…We demonstrated the ability to perform universal single qubit operations in sub nanosecond time scales 23 , two orders of magnitude faster than previously shown for single spin qubits [24][25][26] . These short operation times together with the demonstrated coherence times of a few microseconds 7 and predicted coherence times of up to 100 microseconds [27][28][29] suggest that the requirements for quantum error correction of two-electron spin qubits are within reach.…”

Theory of spin relaxation in two-electron laterally coupled Si/SiGe quantum dots

“…[2][3][4] In GaAs-based qubits, which are the state of the art, the essential gate operations 1, 5,6 for quantum computation 7,8 have been demonstrated. [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] But GaAs possesses a serious handicap for coherent spin manipulations-the nuclear spins. 19,20 Controlling this source of decoherence is of major interest and an active field of research.…”