Millington-Hotze, P. orcid.org/0000-0002-4857-9926, Manna, S., Covre da Silva, S.F. orcid.org/0000-0003-4977-1933 et al. (2 more authors) (2023) Nuclear spin diffusion in the central spin system of a GaAs/AlGaAs quantum dot. Nature Communications, 14 (1). 2677. ISSN 2041-1723
Abstract
The spin diffusion concept provides a classical description of a purely quantum-mechanical evolution in inhomogeneously polarized many-body systems such as nuclear spin lattices. The central spin of a localized electron alters nuclear spin diffusion in a way that is still poorly understood. Here, spin diffusion in a single GaAs/AlGaAs quantum dot is witnessed in the most direct manner from oscillatory spin relaxation dynamics. Electron spin is found to accelerate nuclear spin relaxation, from which we conclude that the long-discussed concept of a Knight-field-gradient diffusion barrier does not apply to GaAs epitaxial quantum dots. Our experiments distinguish between non-diffusion relaxation and spin diffusion, allowing us to conclude that diffusion is accelerated by the central electron spin. Such acceleration is observed up to unexpectedly high magnetic fields – we propose electron spin-flip fluctuations as an explanation. Diffusion-limited nuclear spin lifetimes range between 1 and 10 s, which is sufficiently long for quantum information storage and processing.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 The Authors. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Quantum dots; Qubits |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Physics and Astronomy (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 16 May 2023 15:30 |
Last Modified: | 16 May 2023 15:30 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41467-023-38349-0 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:199200 |