Large nuclear spin polarization in gate-defined quantum dots using a single-domain nanomagnet

Giant hyperfine interaction between a dark exciton condensate and nuclei

We study the interaction of a dark exciton Bose-Einstein condensate with the nuclei in gallium arsenide/aluminum gallium arsenide coupled quantum wells and find clear evidence for nuclear polarization buildup that accompanies the appearance of the condensate. We show that the nuclei are polarized throughout the mesa area, extending to regions that are far away from the photoexcitation area and persisting for seconds after the excitation is switched off. Photoluminescence measurements in the presence of radio frequency radiation reveal that the hyperfine interaction between the nuclear and electron spins is enhanced by two orders of magnitude. We suggest that this large enhancement manifests the collective nature of the N-exciton condensate, which amplifies the interaction by a factor of [Formula: see text].

Approaching a fully-polarized state of nuclear spins in a solid

Magnetic noise of atomic nuclear spins is a major source of decoherence in solid-state spin qubits. In theory, near-unity nuclear spin polarization can eliminate decoherence of the electron spin qubit, while turning the nuclei into a useful quantum information resource. However, achieving sufficiently high nuclear polarizations has remained an evasive goal. Here we implement a nuclear spin polarization protocol which combines strong optical pumping and fast electron tunneling. Nuclear polarizations well above 95% are generated in GaAs semiconductor quantum dots on a timescale of 1 minute. The technique is compatible with standard quantum dot device designs, where highly-polarized nuclear spins can simplify implementations of qubits and quantum memories, as well as offer a testbed for studies of many-body quantum dynamics and magnetism.

Measurement of the spin temperature of optically cooled nuclei and GaAs hyperfine constants in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum dots

Deep cooling of electron and nuclear spins is equivalent to achieving polarization degrees close to 100% and is a key requirement in solid-state quantum information technologies. While polarization of individual nuclear spins in diamond and SiC (ref. ) reaches 99% and beyond, it has been limited to 50-65% for the nuclei in quantum dots. Theoretical models have attributed this limit to formation of coherent 'dark' nuclear spin states but experimental verification is lacking, especially due to the poor accuracy of polarization degree measurements. Here we measure the nuclear polarization in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum dots with high accuracy using a new approach enabled by manipulation of the nuclear spin states with radiofrequency pulses. Polarizations up to 80% are observed-the highest reported so far for optical cooling in quantum dots. This value is still not limited by nuclear coherence effects. Instead we find that optically cooled nuclei are well described within a classical spin temperature framework. Our findings unlock a route for further progress towards quantum dot electron spin qubits where deep cooling of the mesoscopic nuclear spin ensemble is used to achieve long qubit coherence. Moreover, GaAs hyperfine material constants are measured here experimentally for the first time.

Noise filtering of composite pulses for singlet-triplet qubits

Semiconductor quantum dot spin qubits are promising candidates for quantum computing. In these systems, the dynamically corrected gates offer considerable reduction of gate errors and are therefore of great interest both theoretically and experimentally. They are, however, designed under the static-noise model and may be considered as low-frequency filters. In this work, we perform a comprehensive theoretical study of the response of a type of dynamically corrected gates, namely the supcode for singlet-triplet qubits, to realistic 1/f noises with frequency spectra 1/ω^α. Through randomized benchmarking, we have found that supcode offers improvement of the gate fidelity for α  1 and the improvement becomes exponentially more pronounced with the increase of the noise exponent in the range 1  α ≤ 3 studied. On the other hand, for small α, supcode will not offer any improvement. The δJ-supcode, specifically designed for systems where the nuclear noise is absent, is found to offer additional error reduction than the full supcode for charge noises. The computed filter transfer functions of the supcode gates are also presented.

Characterization of qubit dephasing by Landau-Zener-Stückelberg-Majorana interferometry

Controlling coherent interaction at avoided crossings and the dynamics there is at the heart of quantum information processing. A particularly intriguing dynamics is observed in the Landau-Zener regime, where periodic passages through the avoided crossing result in an interference pattern carrying information about qubit properties. In this Letter, we demonstrate a straightforward method, based on steady-state experiments, to obtain all relevant information about a qubit, including complex environmental influences. We use a two-electron charge qubit defined in a lateral double quantum dot as test system and demonstrate a long coherence time of T2 ≃ 200 ns, which is limited by electron-phonon interaction.

Nuclear magnetization in gallium arsenide quantum dots at zero magnetic field

Optical and electrical control of the nuclear spin system allows enhancing the sensitivity of NMR applications and spin-based information storage and processing. Dynamic nuclear polarization in semiconductors is commonly achieved in the presence of a stabilizing external magnetic field. Here we report efficient optical pumping of nuclear spins at zero magnetic field in strain-free GaAs quantum dots. The strong interaction of a single, optically injected electron spin with the nuclear spins acts as a stabilizing, effective magnetic field (Knight field) on the nuclei. We optically tune the Knight field amplitude and direction. In combination with a small transverse magnetic field, we are able to control the longitudinal and transverse components of the nuclear spin polarization in the absence of lattice strain--that is, in dots with strongly reduced static nuclear quadrupole effects, as reproduced by our model calculations.

Steady-state entanglement in the nuclear spin dynamics of a double quantum dot

We propose a scheme for the deterministic generation of steady-state entanglement between the two nuclear spin ensembles in an electrically defined double quantum dot. Because of quantum interference in the collective coupling to the electronic degrees of freedom, the nuclear system is actively driven into a two-mode squeezedlike target state. The entanglement buildup is accompanied by a self-polarization of the nuclear spins towards large Overhauser field gradients. Moreover, the feedback between the electronic and nuclear dynamics leads to multistability and criticality in the steady-state solutions.