Harnessing nuclear spin polarization fluctuations in a semiconductor nanowire

Abstract

Soon after the first measurements of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) in a condensed matter system, Bloch predicted the presence of statistical fluctuations proportional to $1/\sqrt{N}$ in the polarization of an ensemble of $N$ spins. First observed by Sleator et al., so-called "spin noise" has recently emerged as a critical ingredient in nanometer-scale magnetic resonance imaging (nanoMRI). This prominence is a direct result of MRI resolution improving to better than 100 nm^3, a size-scale in which statistical spin fluctuations begin to dominate the polarization dynamics. We demonstrate a technique that creates spin order in nanometer-scale ensembles of nuclear spins by harnessing these fluctuations to produce polarizations both larger and narrower than the natural thermal distribution. We focus on ensembles containing ~10^6 phosphorus and hydrogen spins associated with single InP and GaP nanowires (NWs) and their hydrogen-containing adsorbate layers. We monitor, control, and capture fluctuations in the ensemble's spin polarization in real-time and store them for extended periods. This selective capture of large polarization fluctuations may provide a route for enhancing the weak magnetic signals produced by nanometer-scale volumes of nuclear spins. The scheme may also prove useful for initializing the nuclear hyperfine field of electron spin qubits in the solid-state.

18 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (6)

• Hyperfine interaction in a quantum dot: Non-Markovian electron spin dynamics
• Charge noise and spin noise in a semiconductor quantum device
• Enhancing the Coherence of a Spin Qubit by Operating it as a Feedback Loop That Controls its Nuclear Spin Bath
• 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

Cited by in corpus (21)

• Universal Vectorial and Ultrasensitive Nanomechanical Force Field Sensor
• The Theory of Spin Noise Spectroscopy: A Review
• Conductance behavior in nanowires with spin-orbit interaction -- A numerical study
• Spin noise spectroscopy beyond thermal equilibrium and linear response
• Observation of Pure Spin Transport in a Diamond Spin Wire
• Manipulation of the nuclear spin ensemble in a quantum dot with chirped magnetic resonance pulses
• High-efficiency resonant amplification of weak magnetic fields for single spin magnetometry
• Boundary between the thermal and statistical polarization regimes in a nuclear spin ensemble
• Eigenmode orthogonality breaking and deviation from the fluctuation dissipation relation in rotationally dressed nanomechanical oscillators
• Reconstruction of nuclear quadrupole interaction in (In,Ga)As/GaAs quantum dots observed by transmission electron microscopy
• Nuclear Spin Relaxation in Rashba Nanowires
• NMR Response of Nuclear Spin Helix in Quantum Wires with Hyperfine and Spin-Orbit Interaction
• Voltage induced conversion of helical to uniform nuclear spin polarization in a quantum wire
• Density and $T_1$ of surface and bulk spins in diamond in high magnetic field gradients
• Force-detected Nuclear Magnetic Resonance
• Spin-qubit noise spectroscopy from randomized benchmarking by supervised learning
• Dynamics of fluctuations in a quantum system
• Efficient Detection of Statistical RF Fields at High Magnetic Field with a Quantum Sensor
• Single-shot measurement of transient nuclear magnetization with spin-noise spectroscopy in n-GaAs microcavities
• Cooling classical many-spin systems using feedback control
• Cooling Flexural Modes of a Mechanical Oscillator by Magnetic Trapped Bose-Einstein Condensate Atoms