We present a microscopic model for a singly charged quantum dot (QD) ensemble to reveal the origin of the long-range effective interaction between the electron spins in the QDs. Wilson's numerical renormalization group (NRG) is used to calculate the magnitude and the spatial dependency of the effective spin-spin interaction mediated by the growth-induced wetting layer. Surprisingly, we found an antiferromagnetic Heisenberg coupling for very short inter-QD distances that is caused by the significant particle-hole asymmetry of the wetting layer band at very low filling. Using the NRG results obtained from realistic parameters as input for a semiclassical simulation for a large QD ensemble, we demonstrate that the experimentally reported phase shifts in the coherent spin dynamics between single- and two-color laser pumping can be reproduced by our model, solving a long-standing open problem of the microscopic origin of the inter-QD electron spin-spin interaction.
We present a microscopic model for a singly charged quantum dot (QD) ensemble to reveal the origin of the long-range effective interaction between the electron spins in the QDs. Wilson's numerical renormalization group (NRG) is used to calculate the magnitude and the spatial dependency of the effective spin-spin interaction mediated by the growth-induced wetting layer. Surprisingly, we found an antiferromagnetic Heisenberg coupling for very short inter-QD distances that is caused by the significant particle-hole asymmetry of the wetting layer band at very low filling. Using the NRG results obtained from realistic parameters as input for a semiclassical simulation for a large QD ensemble, we demonstrate that the experimentally reported phase shifts in the coherent spin dynamics between single- and two-color laser pumping can be reproduced by our model, solving a long-standing open problem of the microscopic origin of the inter-QD electron spin-spin interaction.
We investigate the spin properties of charge carriers in vertically coupled InAs/InAlGaAs quantum dots grown by molecular beam epitaxy, emitting at telecom C-band wavelengths, with a silicon δ -doped layer. Using time-resolved pump-probe Faraday ellipticity measurements, we systematically study single-, two-, and four-layer quantum dot (QD) configurations to quantify how vertical coupling affects key spin-coherence parameters. Our measurements reveal distinct layer-dependent effects: (i) Adding a second QD layer flips the resident charge from electrons to holes, consistent with optically induced electron tunneling into lower-energy dots and resultant hole charging. (ii) Starting from the four-layer sample, the pump-probe signal develops an additional nonoscillating, decaying component absent in single- and two-layer samples, attributed to multiple layer growth changing the strain environment, which reduces heavy-hole and light-hole mixing. (iii) With four layers or more, hole spin mode locking (SML) can be observed, enabling quantitative extraction of the hole coherence time T 2 ≈ 13 ns from SML amplitude saturation. We also extract longitudinal spin relaxation ( T 1 ) and transverse ( T 2 * ) spin dephasing times, g-factors, and inhomogeneous dephasing parameters for both electrons and holes across all layer configurations. The hole spin dephasing times T 2 * remain relatively constant (2.3–2.7 ns) across layer counts, while longitudinal relaxation times T 1 decrease with increasing layers (from 0.9 µ s for single-layer to 0.32 µ s for four-layer samples). These findings provide potential design guidelines for engineering spin coherence in telecom-band QDs for quantum information applications.
The optically-induced coherent spin dynamics in a charged quantum dot (QD) is studied theoretically using a new dynamical model for rigorous description of circularly polarized ultrashort optical pulse resonant interactions with the electron-trion system. Generalized pseudospin master equation is derived for description of the time evolution of spin coherences and spin populations in terms of the real state pseudospin (coherence) vector including dissipation in the system through spin relaxation processes. The equation is solved in the time domain self-consistently with the vector Maxwell equations for the optical wave propagation coupled to it via macroscopic medium polarization. Using the model the long-lived electron spin coherence left behind a single resonant ultrashort optical excitation of the electron-trion transition in a charged QD is simulated in the lowand high-intensity Rabi oscillations regime. Signatures of the polarized photoluminescence (PL) resulting from the numerical simulations, such as the appearance of a second echo pulse after the excitation and a characteristic PL trace shape, specific for initial spin-up orientation, are discussed for realization of high-fidelity schemes for coherent readout of a single spin polarization state.
Fast, controlled coherent interactions between spins in separated quantum dots are a key requirement for two-qubit gates and distributed architectures in advancing quantum information in the solid state. We have performed two-color pump-probe experiments in which pulsed lasers emitting at different photon energies manipulate two subsets of electron spins in an inhomogeneous ensemble of InGaAs quantum dots. Measurements of the resulting ellipticity demonstrate the slow, power dependent onset of phase shifts in the Larmor precession in a magnetic field of one subset of oriented spins after optical orientation of the second subset. Model calculations show that these results are consistent with a Heisenberg-like interaction between the pairs of spins with strength ~ micro-eV and that this interaction results in entanglement between the spins.
Single electron spin in a semiconductor quantum dot (QD) and single photon wavepacket propagating in an optical waveguide are investigated as carriers of quantum bit (qubit) for information processing. Cavity quantum electrodynamics of the coupled system composed of charged QD, microcavity and waveguide provides a quantum interface for the interplay of stationary spin qubits and flying photon qubits via cavity assisted optical control. This interface forms the basis for a wide range of essential functions of a quantum network, including transferring, swapping, and entangling qubits at distributed quantum nodes as well as a deterministic source and an efficient detector of a single photon wavepacket with arbitrarily specified shape. The cavity assisted optical process also made possible ultrafast initialization and QND readout of the spin qubit in QD. In addition, the strong optical nonlinearity of dot-cavity-waveguide coupled system enables phase gate and entanglement operation for flying single photon qubits in waveguides. The coherence of the electron spin is the wellspring of these quantum applications being investigated. At low temperature and strong magnetic field, the dominant cause of electron spin decoherence is the coupling with the interacting lattice nuclear spins. We present a quantum solution to the coupled dynamics of the electron with the nuclear spin bath. The decoherence is treated in terms of quantum entanglement of the electron with the nuclear pair-flip excitations driven by the various nuclear interactions. A novel nuclear interaction, mediated by virtue spin-flips of the single electron, plays an important role in single spin free-induction decay (FID). The spin echo not only refocuses the dephasing by inhomogeneous broadening in ensemble dynamics but also eliminates the decoherence by electron-mediated nuclear interaction. Thus, the decoherence times for single spin FID and ensemble spin echo are significantly different. The quantum theory of decoherence also leads to a method of coherence recovery of the electron by disentanglement, realized through maneuvering the nuclear bath evolution by control of the electron spin-flip. The studies form the basis to outline the construction of a solid-state quantum network for scalable and distributed processing of quantum information
We have experimentally studied the spin dynamics of excitons, electrons, and trions in charge-tunable InP/InGaP quantum dots (QDs) excited by picosecond resonant laser pulses by observing the time-resolved Kerr rotation. In singly charged QDs, inversion of the spin polarization direction of doped electrons is found to be caused simply by variation in the pulse intensity, which is accompanied by an abrupt change of the spin coherence time. This phenomenon is reproduced by density-matrix calculations allowing for the reaction on the QD electron-trion four-level system during its coherent radiation emission. This result means that the optical coherence is another critical factor affecting electron spin coherence.
In this work, we study the resonant nonlinear optical response obtained when optical fields are used to excite charged semiconductor quantum dots (QDs). The basic physics of charged excitons (trions) created by optical excitation of charged QDs is of interest from the point of view of optically driven spin based quantum computing (QC). Stimulated Raman excitation, resonantly enhanced by the optical dipole coupling to the trion state, was used to optically generate electron spin coherence in the ground state of charged QDs. The evolution of the spin coherence was monitored through quantum beats in the phase-sensitively detected four wave mixing signal. The decay of the beats is a measure of the spin coherence time, which was found to be at least an order of magnitude greater than either the trion dipole coherence, or the Raman coherence time between excitons in a single neutral QD. A fascinating outcome of the experiment was the first observation of a contribution to the spin coherence induced by the vacuum field, which is also responsible for spontaneous emission from the trion state, known as spontaneously generated coherence (SGC). QC demands that coherent optical manipulations should be performed within the spin coherence time. We performed coherent optical control experiments, with a pair of phase-locked pump pulses, that showed the quantum nature of the coherence through interference of different quantum mechanical pathways. We showed both in experiment and theory that we can manipulate the spin coherence on the time scale of the Larmor frequency, as well as on an ultrafast femtosecond time scale, corresponding to the optical frequency of the trion state. Finally, resonant optical excitation of both the bright and nominally forbidden transitions from a single electron spin in a QD to the trion state were demonstrated. This allows for direct optical access to all the transitions required for optically driven QC with QD electron spins. We used frequency-domain nonlinear spectroscopy measurements on single QD trions to obtain the trion dipole decoherence and decay rates. Further, we demonstrated that the single electron spin coherence could be generated and detected optically, and found that the spin coherence time was significantly greater than in ensemble measurements at the same magnetic field.