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arXiv:1205.2455

Entangling electrons by splitting Cooper pairs: Two-particle conductance resonance and time coincidence measurements

Anindya Das, Yuval Ronen, Moty Heiblum, D. Mahalu, Andrey V. Kretinin, Hadas Shtrikman

Published May 11, 2012• 5 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Entanglement, being at the heart of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) paradox, is a necessary ingredient in processing quantum information. Cooper pairs in superconductors - being composites of two fully entangled electrons - can be split adiabatically, thus forming entangled electrons. We fabricated such electron splitter by contacting an aluminum superconductor strip at the center of a suspended InAs nanowire; terminated at both ends with two normal metallic drains. Intercepting each half of the nanowire by gate - induced Coulomb blockaded quantum dot strongly impeded the flow of Cooper pairs due to large charging energy, while still permitting passage of single electrons. Here, we provide conclusive evidence of extremely high efficiency Cooper pairs splitting via observing positive average (conductance) and time (shot noise) correlations of the split electrons in the two opposite drains of the nanowire. Moreover, The actual charge of the injected quasiparticles was verified by shot noise measurements.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1205.2455

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Entanglement, being at the heart of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) paradox, is a necessary ingredient in processing quantum information. Cooper pairs in superconductors - being composites of two fully entangled electrons - can be split adiabatically, thus forming entangled electrons. We fabricated such electron splitter by contacting an aluminum superconductor strip at the center of a suspended InAs nanowire; terminated at both ends with two normal metallic drains. Intercepting each half of the nanowire by gate - induced Coulomb blockaded quantum dot strongly impeded the flow of Cooper pairs due to large charging energy, while still permitting passage of single electrons. Here, we provide conclusive evidence of extremely high efficiency Cooper pairs splitting via observing positive average (conductance) and time (shot noise) correlations of the split electrons in the two opposite drains of the nanowire. Moreover, The actual charge of the injected quasiparticles was verified by shot noise measurements.
Entanglement is a valuable resource for quantum computing and information technologies. A promising way to obtain spin-entangled electrons is the splitting of Cooper pairs residing in superconductors. This is realized by a nanodevice called Cooper pair splitter. A Cooper pair splitter is realized by tunnel-coupling a superconductor to two quantum dots, which are each further tunnelcoupled to separate terminal leads. This setup enables the extraction and splitting of Cooper pairs from the superconductor into the terminals via the quantum dots. The quantum dots are commonly fabricated from semiconducting materials like InAs and InSb, that can manifest spin-orbit interaction. This thesis studies the effect of spin-orbit interaction on the spin state of the electron pair in the Cooper pair splitter. Activating the spin-orbit effects in a Cooper pair splitter requires a static magnetic field to be applied to the quantum dots. Together with the gate electrodes controlling the electrostatic energy of the quantum dots, the external magnetic field provides a handle for addressing different two-particle spin states. The spin-orbit interaction can be activated by various combinations of the gate voltage and Zeeman magnetic field, that create resonances between different states of the system. The most interesting coherent evolution, that can be invoked in this way, involves the simultaneous activation of the two spin-polarized triplet states. This gives a rise to an entangled Bell state, (|↑↑>+|↓↓>) / √2, that moreover exhibits spin blockade and thus stabilizes entanglement in the Cooper pair splitter. Secondly, the spin-orbit interaction can be used to bypass suppressed Cooper pair tunneling at a high superconductor-quantum dots detuning. Introducing a large Zeeman magnetic field allows Cooper pairs to tunnel in to the dots given that their spin state flips to the triplet |↓↓>. Although this regime lacks spin-entanglement, it is of interest for creating triplet Cooper pairs and spin-polarized superconducting currents.
A superconductor is a natural source of spin-entangled spatially separated electron pairs. Although the first Cooper-pair splitter devices have been realized recently, an experimental confirmation of the spin state and the entanglement of the emitted electron pairs has been lacking up to now. In this paper, a method is proposed to confirm the spin-singlet character of individual split Cooper pairs. Two quantum dots (QDs), each of them holding one spin-prepared electron, serve as the detector of the spin state of a single Cooper pair that is forced to split when it tunnels out from the superconductor to the QDs. The number of charges on the QDs, measured at the end of the procedure, carries information on the spin state of the extracted Cooper pair. The method relies on the experimentally established toolkit of QD-based spin qubits: resonant spin manipulation, Pauli blockade, and charge measurement.
Electron entanglement: splitting pairs One of the most counterintuitive aspects of quantum mechanics is non-locality, manifesting as spatially separated objects influencing each other in a direct way. Experimental verifications of such concepts have been conducted successfully using entangled pairs of photons to test so-called Bell inequalities, but similar demonstrations using electrons have remained elusive owing to the inherent difficulty of creating and splitting pairs of entangled electrons. Lukas Hofstetter and colleagues now demonstrate that this is possible in a Y-shaped electron entangler consisting of a superconductor at its stem, coupled via tunnelling barriers to two separate quantum dots along the fork-like branches of the device. The entangled pairs of electrons are naturally formed in the superconductor, which in its ground state consists of Cooper pairs of electrons, and split by Coulomb interactions and careful tuning of the energy levels of the quantum dots. The study paves the way for the study of electronic entanglement and experimental tests of Bell inequalities in the solid state.
The two electrons of a Cooper pair in a conventional superconductor form a spin singlet and therefore a maximally entangled state. Recently, it was demonstrated that the two particles can be extracted from the superconductor into two spatially separated contacts via two quantum dots in a process called Cooper pair splitting (CPS). Competing transport processes, however, limit the efficiency of this process. Here we demonstrate efficiencies up to 90%, significantly larger than required to demonstrate interaction-dominated CPS, and on the right order to test Bell's inequality with electrons. We compare the CPS currents through both quantum dots, for which large apparent discrepancies are possible. The latter we explain intuitively and in a semiclassical master equation model. Large efficiencies are required to detect electron entanglement and for prospective electronics-based quantum information technologies.
Cooper pair splitters are promising candidates for generating spin-entangled electrons. However, the splitting of Cooper pairs is a random and noisy process, which hinders further synchronized operations on the entangled electrons. To circumvent this problem, we here propose and analyze a dynamic Cooper pair splitter that produces a noiseless and regular flow of spin-entangled electrons. The Cooper pair splitter is based on a superconductor coupled to quantum dots, whose energy levels are tuned in and out of resonance to control the splitting process. We identify the optimal operating conditions for which exactly one Cooper pair is split per period of the external drive and the flow of entangled electrons becomes noiseless. To characterize the regularity of the Cooper pair splitter in the time domain, we analyze the g^{(2)} function of the output currents and the distribution of waiting times between split Cooper pairs. Our proposal is feasible using current technology, and it paves the way for dynamic quantum information processing with spin-entangled electrons.
In a device with a superconductor coupled to two parallel quantum dots (QDs) the electrical tunability of the QD levels can be used to exploit nonclassical current correlations due to the splitting of Cooper pairs. We experimentally investigate the effect of a finite potential difference across one quantum dot on the conductance through the other completely grounded QD in a Cooper pair splitter fabricated on an InAs nanowire. We demonstrate that the nonlocal electrical transport through the device can be tuned by electrical means and that the energy dependence of the effective density of states in the QDs is relevant for the rates of Cooper pair splitting (CPS) and elastic cotunneling. Such experimental tools are necessary to understand and develop CPS-based sources of entangled electrons in solid-state devices.