Electron cascade for distant spin readout

Cornelis Jacobus van Diepen, Tzu-Kan Hsiao, U. Mukhopadhyay, Christian Reichl, W. Wegscheider, Lieven M. K. Vandersypen

Published Jan 1, 2021• 14 citations

Abstract

Abstract The spin of a single electron in a semiconductor quantum dot provides a well-controlled and long-lived qubit implementation. The electron charge in turn allows control of the position of individual electrons in a quantum dot array, and enables charge sensors to probe the charge configuration. Here we show that the Coulomb repulsion allows an initial charge transition to induce subsequent charge transitions, inducing a cascade of electron hops, like toppling dominoes. A cascade can transmit information along a quantum dot array over a distance that extends by far the effect of the direct Coulomb repulsion. We demonstrate that a cascade of electrons can be combined with Pauli spin blockade to read out distant spins and show results with potential for high fidelity using a remote charge sensor in a quadruple quantum dot device. We implement and analyse several operating modes for cascades and analyse their scaling behaviour. We also discuss the application of cascade-based spin readout to densely-packed two-dimensional quantum dot arrays with charge sensors placed at the periphery. The high connectivity of such arrays greatly improves the capabilities of quantum dot systems for quantum computation and simulation.

DOI: 10.3929/ethz-b-000460924

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