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arXiv:1511.07369 · Quantum

Phonon-assisted relaxation and decoherence of singlet-triplet qubits in Si/SiGe quantum dots

Viktoriia Kornich, Christoph Kloeffel, Daniel Loss

Published May 28, 2018• 16 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We study theoretically the phonon-induced relaxation and decoherence of spin states of two electrons in a lateral double quantum dot in a SiGe/Si/SiGe heterostructure. We consider two types of singlet-triplet spin qubits and calculate their relaxation and decoherence times, in particular as a function of level hybridization, temperature, magnetic field, spin orbit interaction, and detuning between the quantum dots, using Bloch-Redfield theory. We show that the magnetic field gradient, which is usually applied to operate the spin qubit, may reduce the relaxation time by more than an order of magnitude. Using this insight, we identify an optimal regime where the magnetic field gradient does not affect the relaxation time significantly, and we propose regimes of longest decay times. We take into account the effects of one-phonon and two-phonon processes and suggest how our theory can be tested experimentally. The spin lifetimes we find here for Si-based quantum dots are significantly longer than the ones reported for their GaAs counterparts.

DOI
10.22331/q-2018-05-28-70

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We study theoretically the phonon-induced relaxation and decoherence of spin states of two electrons in a lateral double quantum dot in a SiGe/Si/SiGe heterostructure. We consider two types of singlet-triplet spin qubits and calculate their relaxation and decoherence times, in particular as a function of level hybridization, temperature, magnetic field, spin orbit interaction, and detuning between the quantum dots, using Bloch-Redfield theory. We show that the magnetic field gradient, which is usually applied to operate the spin qubit, may reduce the relaxation time by more than an order of magnitude. Using this insight, we identify an optimal regime where the magnetic field gradient does not affect the relaxation time significantly, and we propose regimes of longest decay times. We take into account the effects of one-phonon and two-phonon processes and suggest how our theory can be tested experimentally. The spin lifetimes we find here for Si-based quantum dots are significantly longer than the ones reported for their GaAs counterparts.
We study the singlet-triplet relaxation due to the spin-orbit coupling assisted by the electron-phonon scattering in two-electron SiGe/Si/SiGe double quantum dots in the presence of an external magnetic field in either Faraday or Voigt configuration. By explicitly including the electron-electron Coulomb interaction and the valley splitting induced by the interface scattering, we employ the exact-diagonalization method to obtain the energy spectra and the eigenstates. Then, we calculate the relaxation rates with the Fermi golden rule. We find that the transition rates can be effectively tuned by varying the external magnetic field and the interdot distance. Especially in the vicinity of the anticrossing point, the transition rates show intriguing features. We also investigate the electric-field dependence of the transition rates and find that the transition rates are almost independent of the electric field. This is of great importance in the spin manipulation, since the lifetime remains almost the same during the change of the qubit configuration from (1,1) to (2,0) by the electric field.
We study theoretically the phonon-induced relaxation (T1{T}_{1}T1​) and decoherence times (T2{T}_{2}T2​) of singlet-triplet qubits in lateral GaAs double quantum dots (DQDs). When the DQD is biased, Pauli exclusion enables strong dephasing via two-phonon processes. This mechanism requires neither hyperfine nor spin-orbit interaction and yields ${T}_{2}\ensuremath{\ll}{T}_{1}$, in contrast to previous calculations of phonon-limited lifetimes. When the DQD is unbiased, we find ${T}_{2}\ensuremath{\simeq}2{T}_{1}$ and much longer lifetimes than in the biased DQD. For typical setups, the decoherence and relaxation rates due to one-phonon processes are proportional to the temperature TTT, whereas the rates due to two-phonon processes reveal a transition from T2{T}^{2}T2 to higher powers as TTT is decreased. Remarkably, both T1{T}_{1}T1​ and T2{T}_{2}T2​ exhibit a maximum when the external magnetic field is applied along a certain axis within the plane of the two-dimensional electron gas. We compare our results with recent experiments and analyze the dependence of T1{T}_{1}T1​ and T2{T}_{2}T2​ on system properties such as the detuning, the spin-orbit parameters, the hyperfine coupling, and the orientation of the DQD and the applied magnetic field with respect to the main crystallographic axes.
We study theoretically the phonon-induced relaxation and decoherence processes in the hybrid qubit in silicon. A hybrid qubit behaves as a charge qubit when the detuning is close to zero and as a spin qubit for large detuning values. It is realized starting from an electrostatically defined double quantum dot where three electrons are confined and manipulated through only electrical tuning. By employing a three-level effective model for the qubit and describing the environment bath as a series of harmonic oscillators in the thermal equilibrium states, we extract the relaxation and decoherence times as a function of the bath spectral density and of the bath temperature using the Bloch-Redfield theory. For Si quantum dots the energy dispersion is strongly affected by the physics of the valley, i.e., the conduction band minima, so we also included the contribution of the valley excitations in our analysis. Our results offer fundamental information on the system decoherence properties when the unavoidable interaction with the environment is included and temperature effects are considered.
Since the development of microsized devices is moving forward at enormous speed, there is huge amount of new industrial opportunities. However such devices also require high precision and understanding of the operating of their constituent parts up to the quantum level. The device of the purely quantum nature being developed so far is quantum computer. However the physical realization of it is still not performed, as the requirements for it are very rigorous. \n \nIn the pioneering work by Loss and DiVincenzo it was suggested to use a spin of electron placed in a quantum dot as an information qubit. Following this work the study of electron or hole spin qubits developed. Both experimental and theoretical tools for studying them greatly advanced. \n \nIn the first part of the thesis we study the phonon-induced decoherence and relaxation of singlet-triplet qubits in the double quantum dots. First of all we consider AlGaAs/GaAs double quantum dots. The important result we present here is the strong dephasing that occurs at large detuning. This dephasing is due to two-phonon process that affects mainly singlet state of the qubit and consequently changes the splitting between singlet and triplet leading to dephasing. Remarkably at small detuning this dephasing process is suppressed and the decoherence time is by orders of magnitude longer than in case of large detuning and is mainly defined by one-phonon process. We also present the dependence of relaxation time and decoherence time on the strength of spin-orbit interaction and different directions of the system. Our results provide a deeper insight into the recently obtained experimental data. \n \nWe also studied Si/SiGe quantum dots as a potential candidate for a qubit. Apart from the absence of hyperfine interaction and bulk spin-orbit interaction in the isotopically purified 28^{28}28Si, its electron-phonon interaction is different from GaAs that also leads to longer qubit lifetimes. We study SSS-T−T_-T−​ qubit near the anticrossing of the basis states. This particular region is interesting due to possibilities in operating the qubit. We show that the type of singlet plays a crucial role, i.e. whether it is a singlet with each dot singly occupied or a singlet with only one dot doubly occupied. Depending on the type of singlet the qubit lifetimes change by several orders of magnitude. We also study the influence of a micromagnet, usually used in experiments to operate the qubit, on the relaxation time and decoherence time and present the regime where its effect is negligible. We suggest how to test experimentally our theory of one-phonon and two-phonon processes separately. We also show how the relaxation and decoherence time depend on different system parameters for SSS-T0T_0T0​ qubits. \n \nThe second part of the thesis is devoted to the other important constituent part of microsized devices, namely nanowires. We are interested in the dynamic of polarization of localized spins in the nanowires, as it can affect such important device characteristics as e.g. conductance. \n \nWe studied Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida (RKKY) interaction-induced polarization in the nanowire in case when the voltage is applied to it. It was already proposed theoretically that in the ground state the localized spins in 1D systems align in a helix due to RKKY interaction. This polarization is still present until some critical temperature. The presence of such polarization acts as a spin filter for electrons, that most likely affects the conductance of the nanowire. Therefore we studied how this helical polarization changes when the voltage is applied. The key result is the appearance of the uniform polarization perpendicular to the helix plane, that occurs due to backscattering of electrons that is accompanied by flip-flop process with localized spins. When this uniform polarization is formed, the helix starts to rotate as a whole around the direction of the uniform polarization. We present the dependence of polarization of the localized spins on temperature and voltage. Remarkably the uniform polarization grows both with voltage and temperature in the given range of parameters. \n \nWe also considered the electron-induced relaxation of the nuclear spins. As the electron spins and nuclear spins interact via hyperfine interaction, the nuclear relaxation time reflects some properties of electron bath. Namely, we see a strong dependence of nuclear relaxation time on spin-orbit interaction strength. We present here the dependence of the nuclear relaxation time on the external magnetic field and chemical potential of the wire, that can be experimentally varied via gate. The dependences for the strong spin-orbit interaction and for the weak one are substantially different. Moreover, they have distinct peaks, that allow to get the value of spin-orbit interaction amplitude with the high precision.
Direct phonon spin-lattice relaxation of an electron qubit bound by a donor impurity or quantum dot in SiGe heterostructures is investigated. The aim is to evaluate the importance of decoherence from this mechanism in several important solid-state quantum computer designs operating at low temperatures. We calculate the relaxation rate 1/T1{1/T}_{1}1/T1​ as a function of [100] uniaxial strain, temperature, magnetic field, and silicon/germanium content for Si:P bound electrons and quantum dots. The quantum dot potential is much smoother, leading to smaller splittings of the valley degeneracies. We have estimated these splittings in order to obtain upper bounds for the relaxation rate. In general, we find that the relaxation rate is strongly decreased by uniaxial compressive strain in a SiGe-Si-SiGe quantum well, making this strain an important positive design feature. Ge in high concentrations (particularly over 85%) increases the rate, making Si-rich materials preferable. We conclude that SiGe bound electron qubits must meet certain conditions to minimize decoherence but that spin-phonon relaxation does not rule out the solid-state implementation of error-tolerant quantum computing.
Charge separation from the (4,0)(4,0)(4,0) to the (3,1)(3,1)(3,1) state in a Si/SiGe double quantum dot is commonly used for initialization of spin qubits and Pauli-spin-blockade readout. It was used in recent experiments involving creation of the (3,1)(3,1)(3,1) singlet, and subsequent shuttling of one of the electrons. We present a theoretical description of the process of charge separation and singlet-triplet mixing, arriving at expressions for the singlet return probability that take into account experimentally observed finite probabilities of the creation of singlets with various patterns of valley occupations. In our analysis we focus on magnetic fields for which the electron spin Zeeman splitting is close to the valley splitting in one of the dots, when the spin-valley coupling causes a strong renormalization of the frequency of oscillations of singlet return probability. The latter effect has been recently used to perform valley splitting mapping by shuttling of one quantum dot to various locations with respect to the other. We give a detailed description of singlet-triplet dynamics near these spin-valley resonances and compare the results of calculations with measurements on double quantum dots in two distinct Si/SiGe heterostructures. Comparison of theory with experiments in which the presence of a few valley occupation patterns is visible, gives insight into the valley dependence of ggg-factors in these structures, providing support for a recently proposed theoretical model of this dependence. We also discuss how dephasing of singlet return probability oscillations near the spin-valley resonances is affected by valley splitting fluctuations caused by electric field noise.