Relaxation of Single Electron Spins by Nuclei in a Double Quantum Dot
Abstract
The spin of a confined electron, when oriented originally in some direction, will lose memory of that orientation after some time. Physical mechanisms leading to this relaxation of spin memory typically involve either coupling of the electron spin to its orbital motion or to nuclear spins. Relaxation of confined electron spin has been previously measured only for Zeeman or exchange split spin states, where spin-orbit effects dominate relaxation, while relaxation due to nuclei has been observed in optical spectroscopy studies. Using an isolated GaAs double quantum dot defined by electrostatic gates and direct time domain measurements, we investigate in detail spin relaxation for arbitrary splitting of spin states. Results demonstrate that the relaxation time is dominated by nuclear interactions and increases by several orders of magnitude when a magnetic field of a few millitesla is applied. These results have significant implications for spin-based information processing.Keywords
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