Phase-Sensitive Probes of Nuclear Polarization in Spin-Blockaded Transport

Abstract

Spin-blockaded quantum dots provide a unique setting for studying nuclear-spin dynamics in a nanoscale system. Despite recent experimental progress, observing phase-sensitive phenomena in nuclear spin dynamics remains challenging. Here we point out that such a possibility opens up in the regime where hyperfine exchange directly competes with a purely electronic spin-flip mechanism such as the spin-orbital interaction. Interference between the two spin-flip processes, resulting from long-lived coherence of the nuclear-spin bath, modulates the electron-spin-flip rate, making it sensitive to the transverse component of nuclear polarization. In a system repeatedly swept through a singlet-triplet avoided crossing, nuclear precession is manifested in oscillations and sign reversal of the nuclear-spin pumping rate as a function of the waiting time between sweeps. This constitutes a purely electrical method for the detection of coherent nuclear-spin dynamics.

Updated to match published version

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Cited by in corpus (11)

• Singlet-triplet splitting in double quantum dots due to spin orbit and hyperfine interactions
• Quenching of dynamic nuclear polarization by spin-orbit coupling in GaAs quantum dots
• Phase Transitions in Dissipative Quantum Transport and Mesoscopic Nuclear Spin Pumping
• General theory of feedback control of a nuclear spin ensemble in quantum dots
• Nuclear Dynamics During Landau-Zener Singlet-Triplet Transitions in Double Quantum Dots
• High Fidelity Singlet-Triplet $S$-$T_{-}$ Qubits in Inhomogeneous Magnetic Fields
• The theory of coherent dynamic nuclear polarization in quantum dots
• Interplay of spin-orbit and hyperfine interactions in dynamical nuclear polarization in semiconductor quantum dots
• Dynamical Self-Quenching of Spin Pumping into Double Quantum Dots
• Characterization of S-T${}_{+}$ Transition Dynamics via Correlation Measurements
• Self-Quenching of Nuclear Spin Dynamics in Central Spin Problem