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Manipulation of the nuclear spin ensemble in a quantum dot with chirped magnetic resonance pulses

Nature Nanotechnology volume 9, pages 671–675 (2014)Cite this article

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An Erratum to this article was published on 06 October 2014

This article has been updated

Abstract

The nuclear spins in nanostructured semiconductors play a central role in quantum applications1,2,3,4. The nuclear spins represent a useful resource for generating local magnetic5 fields but nuclear spin noise represents a major source of dephasing for spin qubits2,3. Controlling the nuclear spins enhances the resource while suppressing the noise. NMR techniques are challenging: the group III and V isotopes have large spins with widely different gyromagnetic ratios; in strained material there are large atom-dependent quadrupole shifts6; and nanoscale NMR is hard to detect7,8. We report NMR on 100,000 nuclear spins of a quantum dot using chirped radiofrequency pulses. Following polarization, we demonstrate a reversal of the nuclear spin. We can flip the nuclear spin back and forth a hundred times. We demonstrate that chirped NMR is a powerful way of determining the chemical composition, the initial nuclear spin temperatures and quadrupole frequency distributions for all the main isotopes. The key observation is a plateau in the NMR signal as a function of sweep rate: we achieve inversion at the first quantum transition for all isotopes simultaneously. These experiments represent a generic technique for manipulating nanoscale inhomogeneous nuclear spin ensembles and open the way to probe the coherence of such mesoscopic systems.

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Figure 1: The experiment: concepts and design.
Figure 2: Adiabatic passage of the nuclear spin ensemble.
Figure 3: Nuclear spin inversion at the first quantum transition in chirped NMR.
Figure 4: Isotope-sensitive NMR with chirped pulses.

Change history

  • 02 September 2014

    In the version of this Letter originally published, the first name of Gunter Wüst was misspelt. This error has now been corrected in the online versions of the Letter.

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Acknowledgements

M.M., G.W., A.V.K., M.P. and R.J.W. acknowledge support from NCCR QSIT and EU ITN S3NANO; M.P. and F.X. from the SNI; and A.L., D.R. and A.D.W. from Mercur Pr-2013-0001 and BMBF-Q.com-H 16KIS0109. The authors thank P. Peddibhotla and C. Kloeffel for technical assistance and C. Degen, P. Maletinsky and H. Ribeiro for discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of Basel, Klingelbergstrasse 82, Basel, CH-4056, Switzerland

    Mathieu Munsch, Gunter Wüst, Andreas V. Kuhlmann, Fei Xue, Arne Ludwig, Martino Poggio & Richard J. Warburton

  2. Lehrstuhl für Angewandte Festkörperphysik, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum, D-44780, Germany

    Arne Ludwig, Dirk Reuter & Andreas D. Wieck

  3. Department Physik, Universität Paderborn, Warburger Strasse 100, Paderborn, D-33098, Germany

    Dirk Reuter

Authors
  1. Mathieu Munsch
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  2. Gunter Wüst
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  3. Andreas V. Kuhlmann
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  4. Fei Xue
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  5. Arne Ludwig
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  7. Andreas D. Wieck
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  8. Martino Poggio
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  9. Richard J. Warburton
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Contributions

M.M. and G.W. carried out the experiments, the data analysis and the theoretical modelling. A.V.K. provided expertise in resonance fluorescence on single quantum dots, and F.X. provided expertise in microwire design and sample processing. F.X. and M.P. provided electronics and software expertise for the NMR. A.L., D.R. and A.D.W. carried out the molecular beam epitaxy. M.M., G.W., M.P. and R.J.W. took the lead in writing the paper and Supplementary Information. R.J.W. conceived and managed the project.

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Correspondence to Mathieu Munsch.

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Munsch, M., Wüst, G., Kuhlmann, A. et al. Manipulation of the nuclear spin ensemble in a quantum dot with chirped magnetic resonance pulses. Nature Nanotech 9, 671–675 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2014.175

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