Measurement of statistical nuclear spin polarization in a nanoscale GaAs sample

Abstract

We measure the statistical polarization of quadrupolar nuclear spins in a sub-micrometer (0.6 um^3) particle of GaAs using magnetic resonance force microscopy. The crystalline sample is cut out of a GaAs wafer and attached to a micro-mechanical cantilever force sensor using a focused ion beam technique. Nuclear magnetic resonance is demonstrated on ensembles containing less than 5 x 10^8 nuclear spins and occupying a volume of around (300 nm)^3 in GaAs with reduced volumes possible in future experiments. We discuss how the further reduction of this detection volume will bring the spin ensemble into a regime where random spin fluctuations, rather than Boltzmann polarization, dominate its dynamics. The detection of statistical polarization in GaAs therefore represents an important first step toward 3D magnetic resonance imaging of III-V materials on the nanometer-scale.

20 pages, 6 figures, 1 supplementary file

References in corpus (6)

• Force-detected nuclear magnetic resonance: Recent advances and future challenges
• The role of spin noise in the detection of nanoscale ensembles of nuclear spins
• Nuclear magnetic resonance force microscopy with a microwire rf source
• Nuclear spin relaxation induced by a mechanical resonator
• High-field optically detected nuclear magnetic resonance in GaAs
• A geometry for optimizing nanoscale magnetic resonance force microscopy

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• Probing large-scale magnetism with the Cosmic Microwave Background
• Neutrino recoil force in electron-capture decay of polarized nuclei: measurement prospects and potential applications
• Entangling nuclear spins in distant quantum dots via an electron bus
• Cooling Flexural Modes of a Mechanical Oscillator by Magnetic Trapped Bose-Einstein Condensate Atoms