We present a numerical study of spin relaxation in a semiclassical electron ensemble in a large ballistic quantum dot. The dot is defined in a GaAs/AlGaAs heterojunction system with a two-dimensional electron gas, and relaxation occurs due to Dresselhaus and Rashba spin orbit interaction. We find that confinement in a micronscale dot can result in strongly enhanced relaxation with respect to a free two-dimensional electron ensemble, contrary to the established result that strong confinement or frequent momentum scattering reduces relaxation. This effect occurs when the size of the system is on the order of the spin precession length, but smaller than the mean free path.
Magnetotunneling spectroscopy was employed to probe the confinement in vertical Si/Ge double-barrier resonant tunneling diodes with regularly distributed Ge quantum dots. Their current-voltage characteristics reveal a step-like behavior in the vicinity of zero bias, indicating resonant tunneling of heavy-holes via three-dimensionally confined unoccupied hole states in Ge quantum dots. Assuming parabolic confinement we extract the strength of the confinement potential of quantum dots.
We explore a strongly correlated quantum dot in the presence of a weak confinement potential and a weak magnetic field. Our exact diagonalization studies show that the groundstate property of such a quantum dot is rather sensitive to the magnetic field and the strength of the confinement potential. We have determined rich phase diagrams of these quantum dots. Some experimental consequences of the obtained phase diagrams are discussed.
We calculate the electron-phonon interaction coefficients for surface acoustic waves and for phonons in free standing quantum wells. These are used to derive the inelastic current through a double quantum dot caused by spontaneous emission of phonons. For the case of the free standing structure (phonon cavity), we predict a staircase-like inelastic current superimposed by van Hove singularities. Therefore, the phonon confinement can be detected by electron transport measurements.
Exchange interaction has been studied for electrons in coupled quantum dots (QD's) by a configuration interaction method using confinement potentials with different profiles. The confinement potential has been parametrized by a two-centre power-exponential function, which allows us to investigate various types of QD's described by either soft or hard potentials of different range. For the soft (Gaussian) confinement potential the exchange energy decreases with increasing interdot distance due to the decreasing interdot tunnelling. For the hard (rectangular-like) confinement potential we have f…
We report low-temperature transport experiments on single-wall nanotubes with metallic leads of varying contact quality, ranging from weak tunneling to almost perfect transmission. In the weak tunneling regime, where Coulomb blockade dominates, the nanotubes act as one-dimensional quantum dots. For stronger coupling to the leads the conductance can be strongly enhanced by inelastic cotunneling and the Kondo effect. For open contacts Coulomb blockade is completely suppressed, and the low-temperature conductance remains generally high, although we often see distinct dips in the conductance versu…
The confinement mechanism of electrons in gated circular quantum dots is studied in a sequence of models, from self-consistent 3D Hartree calculations to the semiclassical model of Shikin et al. Separation of the vertical from transverse confinement allows accurate 2D Hartree calculations. For moderate size dots containing $\sim 50$ electrons, 2D Thomas-Fermi can also be accurate. Finally, a Shikin type parameterization of the electron density allows quantitative study of the importance of the many contributions to the confinement potential.
We study and compare two analytic models of graphene quantum dots for calculating charge relaxation times due to electron-phonon interaction. Recently, charge relaxation processes in graphene quantum dots have been probed experimentally and here we provide a theoretical estimate of relaxations times. By comparing a model with pure edge confinement to a model with electrostatic confinement, we find that the latter features much larger relaxation times. Interestingly, relaxation times in electrostatically defined quantum dots are predicted to exceed the experimentally observed lower bound of ~10…
We have performed Hartree-Fock calculations of electronic structure of N \le 10 electrons in a quantum dot modeled with a confining Gaussian potential well. We discuss the conditions for the stability of N bound electrons in the system. We show that the most relevant parameter determining the number of bound electrons is $V_0 R^2$. Such a property arises from widely valid scaling properties of the con ning potential. Gaussian Quantum dots having N = 2, 5 and 8 electrons are particularly stable in agreement with Hund rule. The shell structure becomes less and less noticeable as the well radius …
We investigate heavy-hole spin relaxation and decoherence in quantum dots in perpendicular magnetic fields. We show that at low temperatures the spin decoherence time is two times longer than the spin relaxation time. We find that the spin relaxation time for heavy holes can be comparable to or even longer than that for electrons in strongly two-dimensional quantum dots. We discuss the difference in the magnetic-field dependence of the spin relaxation rate due to Rashba or Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling for systems with positive (i.e., GaAs quantum dots) or negative (i.e., InAs quantum dots) …
We investigate theoretically spin relaxation in heavy hole quantum dots in low external magnetic fields. We demonstrate that two-phonon processes and spin-orbit interaction are experimentally relevant and provide an explanation for the recently observed saturation of the spin relaxation rate in heavy hole quantum dots with vanishing magnetic fields. We propose further experiments to identify the relevant spin relaxation mechanisms in low magnetic fields.
We study the relaxation of the exciton spin (longitudinal relaxation time $T_{1}$) in single asymmetrical quantum dots due to an interplay of the short--range exchange interaction and acoustic phonon deformation. The calculated relaxation rates are found to depend strongly on the dot size, magnetic field and temperature. For typical quantum dots and temperatures below 100 K, the zero--magnetic field relaxation times are long compared to the exciton lifetime, yet they are strongly reduced in high magnetic fields. We discuss explicitly quantum dots based on (In,Ga)As and (Cd,Zn)Se semiconductor …
Phonon-induced spin relaxation in coupled lateral quantum dots in the presence of spin-orbit coupling is calculated. The calculation for single dots is consistent with experiment. Spin relaxation in double dots at useful interdot couplings is dominated by spin hot spots that are strongly anisotropic. Spin hot spots are ineffective for a diagonal crystallographic orientation of the dots with a transverse in-plane field. This geometry is proposed for spin-based quantum information processing.
Massless Dirac particles cannot be confined by an electrostatic potential. This is a problem for making graphene quantum dots but confinement can be achieved with a magnetic field and here, general conditions for confined and deconfined states are derived. There is a class of potentials for which the character of the state can be controlled at will. Then a confinement-deconfinement transition occurs which allows the Klein paradox to be probed experimentally in graphene dots.
new defect-assisted mechanism of multiphonon intraband carrier relaxation in semiconductor quantum dots, where the carrier is found in a coherent superposition of the initial, final, and defect states, is proposed. It is shown that this mechanism is capable of explaining the observed trends in temperature dependences of the intraband relaxation rates for PbSe and CdSe colloidal nanocrystal quantum dots.
We theoretically analyse the possibility to electrostatically confine electrons in circular quantum dot arrays, impressed on contacted graphene nanoribbons by top gates. Utilising exact numerical techniques, we compute the scattering efficiency of a single dot and demonstrate that for small-sized scatterers the cross-sections are dominated by quantum effects, where resonant scattering leads to a series of quasi-bound dot states. Calculating the conductance and the local density of states for quantum dot superlattices we show that the resonant carrier transport through such graphene-based nanos…
Recently, it was shown that the coupling of center-of-mass and relative motion in atomic systems leads to inelastic confinement-induced resonances (ICIRs) [Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 073201 (2012)]. In the present work, the possible occurrence of ICIRs in quantum dots is investigated. Particularly, electron-hole and electron-electron two-body systems with long-range Coulomb interaction are considered using the material parameters of GaAs. ICIRs are identified for the electron-hole system verifying the universal nature of the ICIR and, additionally, resonances due to the coupling of center-of-mass a…
Using low-temperature scanning tunneling spectroscopy, we map the local density of states (LDOS) of graphene quantum dots supported on Ir(111). Due to a band gap in the projected Ir band structure around the graphene K point, the electronic properties of the QDs are dominantly graphene-like. Indeed, we compare the results favorably with tight binding calculations on the honeycomb lattice based on parameters derived from density functional theory. We find that the interaction with the substrate near the edge of the island gradually opens a gap in the Dirac cone, which implies soft-wall confinem…
We model quasi-two-dimensional two-electron Quantum Dots in a parabolic confinement potential with rovibrational and purely vibrational effective Hamiltonian operators. These are optimized by non-linear least-square fits to the exact energy levels. We find, that the vibrational Hamiltonian describes the energy levels well and reveals how relative contributions change on varying the confinement strength. The rovibrational model suggests the formation of a rigid two-electron molecule in weak confinement and we further present a modified model, that allows a very accurate transition from weak to …
We review recent studies on spin decoherence of electrons and holes in quasi-two-dimensional quantum dots, as well as electron-spin relaxation in nanowire quantum dots. The spins of confined electrons and holes are considered major candidates for the realization of quantum information storage and processing devices, provided that sufficently long coherence and relaxation times can be achieved. The results presented here indicate that this prerequisite might be realized in both electron and hole quantum dots, taking one large step towards quantum computation with spin qubits.
We study the mechanism of nuclear spin relaxation in quantum dots due to the electron exchange with 2D gas. We show that the nuclear spin relaxation rate is dramatically affected by the Coulomb blockade and can be controlled by gate voltage. In the case of strong spin-orbit coupling the relaxation rate is maximal in the Coulomb blockade valleys whereas for the weak spin-orbit coupling the maximum of the nuclear spin relaxation rate is near the Coulomb blockade peaks.
We use a configuration-interaction approach and Fermi golden rule to investigate electron-phonon interaction in realistic multi-electron quantum dots. Lifetimes are computed in the low-density, highly correlated regime. We report numerical evidence that electron-electron interaction generally leads to reduced decay rates of excited electronic states in weakly confined quantum dots, where carrier relaxation is dominated by the interaction with longitudinal acoustic phonons.
We analyzed localized charge time evolution in the system of two interacting quantum dots (QD) (artificial molecule) coupled with the continuous spectrum states. We demonstrated that Coulomb interaction modifies relaxation rates and is responsible for non-monotonic time evolution of the localized charge. We suggested new mechanism of this non-monotonic charge time evolution connected with charge redistribution between different relaxation channels in each QD.
We investigate the spin relaxation induced by acoustic phonons in the presence of spin-orbit interactions in single electron Si/SiGe lateral coupled quantum dots. The relaxation rates are computed numerically in single and double quantum dots, in in-plane and perpendicular magnetic fields. The deformation potential of acoustic phonons is taken into account for both transverse and longitudinal polarizations and their contributions to the total relaxation rate are discussed with respect to the dilatation and shear potential constants. We find that in single dots the spin relaxation rate scales a…
So far in the literature the terms "charged exciton" and "trion" are often confused with each other and mostly considered as the same. In this work we show this is not the case in 2D quantum dots with a parabolic confinement. By using the unrestricted Hartree-Fock method the energy and binding energy of both charged excitons and trions in 2D parabolic quantum dots are calculated in dependence on the confinements of charge carriers in quantum dot. It is shown that the binding energies of the charged exciton and the trion behave differently in regard to the ratios of the confinements between the…
While time-dependent perturbation theory shows inefficient carrier-phonon scattering in semiconductor quantum dots, we demonstrate that a quantum kinetic description of carrier-phonon interaction predicts fast carrier capture and relaxation. The considered processes do not fulfill energy conservation in terms of free-carrier energies because polar coupling of localized quantum-dot states strongly modifies this picture.
We calculate spin relaxation rates in lateral quantum dot systems due to electron exchange between dots and leads. Using rate equations, we develop a theoretical description of the experimentally observed electric current in the spin blockade regime of double quantum dots. Single expression fits the entire current profile and describes the structure of both the conduction peaks and of the suppressed (`valley') region. Extrinsic rates calculated here have to be taken into account for accurate extraction of intrinsic relaxation rates due to the spin-orbit and hyperfine spin scattering mechanisms…
We have calculated spin relaxation rates in parabolic quantum dots due to the phonon modulation of the spin-orbit interaction in presence of an external magnetic field. Both, deformation potential and piezoelectric electron-phonon coupling mechanisms are included within the Pavlov-Firsov spin-phonon Hamiltonian. Our results have demonstrated that, in narrow gap materials, the electron-phonon deformation potential and piezoelectric coupling give comparable contributions as spin relaxation processes. For large dots, the deformation potential interaction becomes dominant. This behavior is not obs…
We study electrostatic quantum dot confinement for charge carriers in silicene. The confinement is formed by vertical electric field surrounding the quantum dot area. The resulting energy gap in the outside of the quantum dot traps the carriers within, and the difference of electrostatic potentials on the buckled silicene sublattices produces nonzero carrier masses outside the quantum dot. We study the electrostatic confinement defined inside a silicene flake with both the atomistic tight-binding approach as well as with the continuum approximation for a circularly symmetric electrostatic pote…
Phonon-induced orbital and spin relaxation rates of single electron states in lateral single and double quantum dots are obtained numerically for realistic materials parameters. The rates are calculated as a function of magnetic field and interdot coupling, at various field and quantum dot orientations. It is found that orbital relaxation is due to deformation potential phonons at low magnetic fields, while piezoelectric phonons dominate the relaxation at high fields. Spin relaxation, which is dominated by piezoelectric phonons, in single quantum dots is highly anisotropic due to the interplay…
A global quantitative picture of the phonon-induced two-electron spin relaxation in GaAs double quantum dots is presented using highly accurate numerical calculations. Wide regimes of interdot coupling, magnetic field magnitude and orientation, and detuning are explored in the presence of a nuclear bath. Most important, the unusually strong magnetic anisotropy of the singlet-triplet relaxation can be controlled by detuning switching the principal anisotropy axes: a protected state becomes unprotected upon detuning, and vice versa. It is also established that nuclear spins can dominate spin rel…
We calculate the spin relaxation rates in a parabolic InSb quantum dots due to the spin interaction with acoustical phonons. We considered the deformation potential mechanism as the dominant electron-phonon coupling in the Pavlov-Firsov spin-phonon Hamiltonian. By studying suitable choices of magnetic field and lateral dot size, we determine regions where the spin relaxation rates can be practically suppressed. We analyze the behavior of the spin relaxation rates as a function of an external magnetic field and mean quantum dot radius. Effects of the spin admixture due to Dresselhaus contributi…
We present a theory for the dissipation of electronic spins trapped in quantum dots due to their coupling to the host lattice acoustic phonon modes. Based on the theory of dissipative two level systems for the spin dynamics, we derive a relation between the spin dissipative bath, the electron confinement, and the electron-phonon interaction. We find that there is an energy scale, typically smaller than the electronic lateral confinement energy, which sets the boundary between different dissipative regimes .
We demonstrate an efficient method to engineer the quantum confinement in a system of two quantum dots grown in a vertical stack. We achieve this by using materials with a different lattice constant for the growth of the outer and inner barriers. We monitor the resulting dot morphology with transmission electron microscopy studies and correlate the results with ensemble quantum dot photoluminescence. Furthermore, we embed the double quantum dots into diode structures and study photoluminescence as a function of bias voltage. We show that in properly engineered structures, it is possible to ach…
We calculate the spin relaxation rates in a parabolic InSb quantum dots due to the spin interaction with acoustical phonons. We considered the deformation potential mechanism as the dominant electron-phonon coupling in the Pavlov-Firsov spin-phonon Hamiltonian. By studying suitable choices of magnetic field and lateral dot size, we determine regions where the spin relaxation rates can be practically suppressed. We analyze the behavior of the spin relaxation rates as a function of an external magnetic field and mean quantum dot radius. Effects of the spin admixture due to Dresselhaus contributi…
The Generalized Kohn Theorem in arrays of parabolic quantum dots with Coulomb interaction between the dots is violated, if there are different dot species involved. We solve the Schrödinger equation for cubic lattices with two different dots per unit cell: i) two different circular dots and ii) two elliptical dots, which are rotated by $90^o$ relative to each other. The interaction between the dots is considered in dipole approximation and long-- wavelength excitation spectra including FIR intensities are calculated. The energy spectrum of the first case can be expressed as a superposition of …
A theoretical model, which relates the binding energy of a positively charged exciton in a quantum dot with the confinement energy is presented. It is shown that the binding energy, defined as the energy difference between the corresponding charged and neutral complexes confined on the same excitonic shell strongly depends on the shell index. Moreover, it is shown that the ratio of the binding energy for positively charged excitons from the $p$- and $s$-shells of a dot depends mainly on the nearly perfect confinement in the dot, which is due to the "hidden symmetry" of the multi-electron-hole …
We report the measurement of extremely slow hole spin relaxation dynamics in small ensembles of self-assembled InGaAs quantum dots. Individual spin orientated holes are optically created in the lowest orbital state of each dot and read out after a defined storage time using spin memory devices. The resulting luminescence signal exhibits a pronounced polarization memory effect that vanishes for long storage times. The hole spin relaxation dynamics are measured as a function of external magnetic field and lattice temperature. We show that hole spin relaxation can occur over remarkably long times…
We study spin relaxation and decoherence caused by electron-lattice and spin-orbit interaction and predict striking effects induced by magnetic fields $B$. For particular values of $B$, destructive interference occurs resulting in ultralong spin relaxation times $T_1$ exceeding tens of seconds. For small phonon frequencies $ω$, we find a $1/\sqrtω$ spin-phonon noise spectrum -- a novel dissipation channel for spins in quantum dots -- which can reduce $T_1$ by many orders of magnitude. We show that nanotubes exhibit zero-field level splitting caused by spin-orbit interaction. This enables an al…
Spin-polarized transport through quantum dots is analyzed theoretically in the cotunneling regime. It is shown that the zero-bias anomaly, found recently in the antiparallel configuration, can also exist in the case when one electrode is magnetic while the other one is nonmagnetic. Physical mechanism of the anomaly is also discussed. It is demonstrated that intrinsic spin relaxation in the dot has a significant influence on the zero-bias maximum in the differential conductance -- the anomaly becomes enhanced by weak spin-flip scattering in the dot and then disappears in the limit of fast spin …
We consider a quasi one-dimensional quantum dot composed of two Coulombically interacting electrons confined in a Gaussian trap. Apart from bound states, the system exhibits resonances that are related to the autoionization process. Employing the complex-coordinate rotation method, we determine the resonance widths and energies and discuss their dependence on the longitudinal confinement potential and the lateral radius of the quantum dot. The stability properties of the system are discussed.
The relaxation time of collective electronic states in a 2D distribution of quantum dots is investigated theoretically by simulating EELS experiments. From the numerical calculation of the probability of energy loss of an electron beam, traveling parallel to the distribution, it is possible to estimate the damping time of ferroelectric-like states. We generate this collective response of the distribution by introducing a mean field interaction among the quantum dots, and then, the model is extended incorporating effects of long-range correlations through a Bragg-Williams approximation. The beh…
Highly accurate numerical results of phonon-induced two-electron spin relaxation in silicon double quantum dots are presented. The relaxation, enabled by spin-orbit coupling and the nuclei of $^{29}$Si (natural or purified abundance), are investigated for experimentally relevant parameters, the interdot coupling, the magnetic field magnitude and orientation, and the detuning. We calculate relaxation rates for zero and finite temperatures (100 mK), concluding that our findings for zero temperature remain qualitatively valid also for 100 mK. We confirm the same anisotropic switch of the axis of …
We present a theoretical study of the evolution of spatial coherence during relaxation between delocalized exciton states in a pair of vertically stacked semiconductor quantum dots coupled to acoustic phonons. We show that spatial coherence can be transferred to the ground state even in a system of uncoupled non-identical quantum dots if a particular kind of degeneracy between the inter-level energy splittings is present. The phonon-assisted mechanism of coherence transfer leads to a dependence of the amount of the resulting coherence on the inter-dot distance and temperature. We analyze also …
We estimate the spin relaxation rate due to spin-orbit coupling and acoustic phonon scattering in weakly-confined quantum dots with up to five interacting electrons. The Full Configuration Interaction approach is used to account for the inter-electron repulsion, and Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit couplings are exactly diagonalized. We show that electron-electron interaction strongly affects spin-orbit admixture in the sample. Consequently, relaxation rates strongly depend on the number of carriers confined in the dot. We identify the mechanisms which may lead to improved spin stability in f…
We investigate the electron and hole spin relaxation in an ensemble of self-assembled InAs/In$_{0.53}$Al$_{0.24}$Ga$_{0.23}$As/InP quantum dots with emission wavelengths around $1.5$~$μ$m by pump-probe Faraday rotation spectroscopy. Electron spin dephasing due to the randomly oriented nuclear Overhauser fields is observed. At low temperatures we find a sub-microsecond longitudinal electron spin relaxation time $T_1$ which unexpectedly strongly depends on temperature. At high temperatures the electron spin relaxation time is limited by optical phonon scattering through spin-orbit interaction de…
We study spin-orbit mediated relaxation and dephasing of electron spins in quantum dots. We show that higher order contributions provide a relaxation mechanism that dominates for low magnetic fields and is of geometrical origin. In the low-field limit relaxation is dominated by coupling to electron-hole excitations and possibly $1/f$ noise rather than phonons.
Quantum dots are fabricated in a Ga[Al]As-heterostructure by local oxidation with an atomic force microscope. This technique, in combination with top gate voltages, allows us to generate steep walls at the confining edges and small lateral depletion lengths. The confinement is characterized by low-temperature magnetotransport measurements, from which the dots' energy spectrum is reconstructed. We find that in small dots, the addition spectrum can qualitatively be described within a Fock-Darwin model. For a quantitative analysis, however, a hard-wall confinement has to be considered. In large d…
In this paper, we present a mathematical approach in estimating transition energy of type-I core-shell quantum dots (CSQDs) in strong and weak confinement of charge carriers within the core materials. We will do this by using effective-mass approximation together with a single-band model. The effects of potential step of conduction band and valence band on confinement strength will be discussed. It can be seen at the end of this paper that for a same size CSQDs, CSQDs with bigger potential steps will have stronger carriers confinement and with more localized excitons.
Spin relaxation in undoped quasi-spherical CdS quantum dots at zero magnetic fields is investigated using time- and polarization-resolved transient absorption measurements. Unlike in previous studies of these systems, the measured signals were corrected for spin-insensitive contributions to the exciton bleaching dynamics, {allowing us to determine} the pure spin-related exciton dynamics. To explain the observed room-temperature spin-relaxation time of several nanoseconds, we propose a novel mechanism based on intralevel exciton transitions with the emission of one LO phonon, the absorption of …
We investigate the effects of the shape of quantum dots on their far-infrared absorption in an external magnetic field by a model calculation. We focus our attention on dots with a parabolic confinement potential deviating from the common circular symmetry, and dots having circular doughnut shape. For a confinement where the generalized Kohn theorem does not hold we are able to interprete the results in terms of a mixture of a center-of-mass mode and collective modes reflecting an excitation of relative motion of the electrons. The calculations are performed within the time-dependent Hartree a…
We estimate the triplet-singlet relaxation rate due to spin-orbit coupling assisted by phonon emission in weakly-confined quantum dots. Our results for two and four electrons show that the different triplet-singlet relaxation trends observed in recent experiments under magnetic fields can be understood within a unified theoretical description, as the result of the competition between spin-orbit coupling and phonon emission efficiency. Moreover, we show that both effects are greatly affected by the strength of the confinement and the external magnetic field, which may give access to very long-l…
We have studied the physical processes responsible for the spin -flip in GaAs quantum dots. We have calculated the rates for different mechanisms which are related to spin-orbit coupling and cause a spin-flip during the inelastic relaxation of the electron in the dot both with and without a magnetic field. We have shown that the zero-dimensional character of the problem when electron wave functions are localized in all directions leads to freezing out of the most effective spin-flip mechanisms related to the absence of the inversion centers in the elementary crystal cell and at the heterointer…
We study the effect of valence band spin-orbit interactions on the acoustic phonon assisted spin relaxation of holes confined in quantum dots. Heavy hole-light hole (hh-lh) mixing and all the spin-orbit terms arising from zinc-blende bulk inversion asymmetry (BIA) are considered on equal footing in a fully 3D Hamiltonian. We show that hh-lh mixing and BIA have comparable contributions to the hole spin relaxation in self-assembled QDs, but BIA becomes dominant in gated QDs. The dependence of the hole spin relaxation on the QD geometry and spin splitting energy is drastically different from that…
We consider charge transport through a nanoscopic object, e.g. single molecules, short nanotubes, or quantum dots, that is weakly coupled to metallic electrodes. We account for several levels of the molecule/quantum dot with level-dependent coupling strengths, and allow for relaxation of the excited states. The current-voltage characteristics as well as the current noise are calculated within first-order perturbation expansion in the coupling strengths. For the case of asymmetric coupling to the leads we predict negative-differential-conductance accompanied with super-poissonian noise. Both ef…
We performed path integral simulations of spin evolution controlled by the Rashba spin-orbit interaction in the semiclassical regime for chaotic and regular quantum dots. The spin polarization dynamics have been found to be strikingly different from the D'yakonov-Perel' (DP) spin relaxation in bulk systems. Also an important distinction have been found between long time spin evolutions in classically chaotic and regular systems. In the former case the spin polarization relaxes to zero within relaxation time much larger than the DP relaxation, while in the latter case it evolves to a time indep…
We report a systematic study of the spin relaxation anisotropy between single electron Zeeman sublevels in cuboidal GaAs quantum dots (QDs). The QDs are subject to an in-plane magnetic field. As the field orientation varies, the relaxation rate oscillates periodically, showing ``magic'' angles where the relaxation rate is suppressed by several orders of magnitude. This behavior is found in QDs with different shapes, heights, crystallographic orientations and external fields. The origin of these angles can be traced back to the symmetries of the spin admixing terms of the Hamiltonian. In [001] …
We investigate charge relaxation rates due to acoustic phonons in weakly-confined quantum dot systems, including both deformation potential and piezoelectric field interactions. Single-electron excited states lifetimes are calculated for single and coupled quantum dot structures, both in homonuclear and heteronuclear devices. Piezoelectric field scattering is shown to be the dominant relaxation mechanism in many experimentally relevant situations. On the other hand, we show that appropriate structure design allows to minimize separately deformation potential and piezolectric field interactions…
Using the exactly solvable excitation spectrum of two-electron quantum dots with parabolic potential, we show that the inclusion of the vertical extension of the quantum dot provides a consistent description of the experimental findings of Nishi et al. [Phys.Rev.B75, 121301(R) (2007)]. We found that the second singlet-triplet transition in the ground state is a vanishing function of the lateral confinement in the three-dimensional case, while it always persists in the two-dimensional case. We show that a slight decrease of the lateral confinement leads to a formation of the Wigner molecule at …
