Bound state in continuum (BIC) might appear in open quantum dots for variation of the dot's shape. By means of the equations of motion of Green functions we investigate effect of strong intradot Coulomb interactions on that phenomenon in the framework of impurity Anderson model. Equation that imaginary part of poles of the Green function equals to zero gives condition for BICs. As a result we show that Coulomb interactions replicate the single-electron BICs into two-electron ones.
We consider a transport setup containing a double-dot connected by a continuum. Via an exact solution of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation, we demonstrate a highly non-Markovian quantum-coherence-mediated transport through this dot-continuum-dot (DCD) system, which is in contrast with the common premise since in typical case a quantum particle does not reenter the system of interest once it irreversibly decayed into a continuum (such as the spontaneous emission of a photon). We also find that this DCD system supports an unusual steady state with unequal source and drain currents, owing t…
A theoretical interpretation of the photoluminescence excitation spectra of self-organized polar GaN/(Al,Ga)N quantum dots is proposed. A numerical method assuming a realistic shape of the dots and including the built-in electric field effects is developed to calculate their energy structure and hence their optical absorption. The electron and hole spectra show the existence of a set of quasi-bound states that does not originate from the wetting layer, and plays a crucial role in the observed absorption spectrum of the GaN/(Al,Ga)N dots. Transitions involving these quasi-bound states and wetti…
We investigate the occurrence of bound states in the continuum (BIC's) in serial structures of quantum dots coupled to an external waveguide, when some characteristic length of the system is changed. By resorting to a multichannel scattering-matrix approach, we show that BIC's do actually occur in two--dimensional serial structures, and that they are a robust effect. When a BIC is produced in a two--dot system, it also occurs for several coupled dots. We also show that the complex dependence of the conductance upon the geometry of the device allows for a simple picture in terms of the resonanc…
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.
Existence of representative longitudinal optical (LO) phonon modes is theoretically discussed for the case of polar semiconductor cylindrical quantum dots embedded in a semiconductor matrix. The approach is developed within the dielectric continuum model considering the Fröhlich interaction between electrons and the confined LO phonons. The theory is applied to cylindrical GaAs/AlAs quantum dots within an adiabatic treatment.
Nanowire double quantum dots occupied by an even number of electrons are investigated in the context of energy level structure revealed by electric dipole spin resonance measurements. We use numerically exact configuration interaction approach up to 6 electrons for systems tuned to Pauli spin blockade regime. We point out the differences between the spectra of systems with two and a greater number of electrons. For two-electrons the unequal length of the dots results in a different effective $g$-factors in the dots as observed by the recent experiments. For an increased number of electrons the…
We show that quantum dots and quantum wires are formed underneath metal electrodes deposited on a planar semiconductor heterostructure containing a quantum well. The confinement is due to the self-focusing mechanism of an electron wave packet interacting with the charge induced on the metal surface. Induced quantum wires guide the transfer of electrons along metal paths and induced quantum dots store the electrons in specific locations of the nanostructure. Induced dots and wires can be useful for devices operating on the electron spin.
Density-functional theory is used to study the electronic structure of quantum dots in a magnetic field. New series of magic numbers are found for the total angular momentum of electrons. The empirical formula for the plateau width is obtained. The effect of a charged impurity on the electronic structure of a quantum dot has been studied.
In this paper we analyse the electronic properties of Dirac electrons in finite-size ribbons and in circular and hexagonal quantum dots made of graphene.
The effects of spin-orbit (SO) coupling arising from the confinement potential in single and two vertically-coupled quantum dots have been investigated. Our work indicates that a dot containing a single electron shows the lifting of the degeneracy of dipole-allowed transitions at B=0 due to the SO coupling which disappears for a dot containing two electrons. For coupled dots with one electron in each dot, the optical spectra is not affected by the coupling and is the same as the dot containing one electron. However, for the case of two coupled dots where one partner dot has two interacting ele…
A classical hydrodynamic approach is used to calculate the magnetoplasma excitations of two vertically coupled electron dots. The electrons are confined by different parabolic potentials in which case Kohn's theorem is no longer valid. The equilibrium density profiles of the electrons in both dots are calculated as function of the interdot distance. We find that for unequal confinements of the two dots the electron density in one of the dots becomes ring-like. The electron densities are then used to obtain the magnetoplasma frequencies. The oscillator strengths are calculated, and we find that…
This is a comment to J. Konig, Y. Gefen and G. Schon, Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 4468 (1998) who consider the coupling of two discrete levels of a dot to the continuum of states in reservoirs. We have generalized this work to the case of several discrete levels.
Two tunnel-coupled few-electron quantum dots were fabricated in a GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well. The absolute number of electrons in each dot could be determined from finite bias Coulomb blockade measurements and gate voltage scans of the dots, and allows the number of electrons to be controlled down to zero. The Zeeman energy of several electronic states in one of the dots was measured with an in-plane magnetic field, and the g-factor of the states was found to be no different than that of electrons in bulk GaAs. Tunnel-coupling between dots is demonstrated, and the tunneling strength was estimate…
We propose a fast optically induced two-qubit \textsc{c-phase} gate between two resident spins in a pair of coupled quantum dots. An excited bound state which extends over the two dots provides an effective electron-electron exchange interaction. The gate is made possible by the electron-hole exchange interaction, which isolates a single transition in the system. When combined with appropriate single qubit rotations, this gate generates an entangled state of the two spins.
We investigate charge dynamics in a two-electron double quantum dot. The quantum dot is manipulated by using a time-dependent external voltage that induces charge oscillations between the dots. We study the dependence of the charge dynamics on the external magnetic field and on the periodicity of the external potential. We find that for suitable parameter values, it is possible to induce both one-electron and two-electron oscillations between the dots.
We theoretically analyze the effect of electron-electron interactions on Aharonov-Bohm (AB) current oscillations in ring-shaped systems with metallic quantum dots pierced by external magnetic field. We demonstrate that electron-electron interactions suppress the amplitude of AB oscillations $I_{AB}$ at all temperatures down to T=0 and formulate quantitative predictions which can be verified in future experiments. We argue that the main physical reason for such interaction-induced suppression of $I_{AB}$ is electron dephasing while Coulomb blockade effects remain insignificant in the case of me…
Kinetics of polarized photoluminescence of the negatively charged InP quantum dots in weak magnetic field is studied experimentally. Effect of both the nuclear spin fluctuations and the dynamical nuclear polarization on the electron spin orientation is observed.
We report the computer-automated tuning of gate-defined semiconductor double quantum dots in GaAs heterostructures. We benchmark the algorithm by creating three double quantum dots inside a linear array of four quantum dots. The algorithm sets the correct gate voltages for all the gates to tune the double quantum dots into the single-electron regime. The algorithm only requires (1) prior knowledge of the gate design and (2) the pinch-off value of the single gate $T$ that is shared by all the quantum dots. This work significantly alleviates the user effort required to tune multiple quantum dot …
We demonstrate electrical control of Si:P double dots in which the potential is defined by nanoscale phosphorus doped regions. Each dot contains approximately 600 phosphorus atoms and has a diameter close to 30 nm. On application of a differential bias across the dots, electron transfer is observed, using single electron transistors in both dc- and rf-mode as charge detectors. With the possibility to scale the dots down to few and even single atoms these results open the way to a new class of precision-doped quantum dots in silicon.
The low-lying eigenstates of a system of two electrons confined within a two-dimensional quantum dot with a hard polygonal boundary are obtained by means of exact diagonalization. The transition from a weakly correlated charge distribution for small dots to a strongly correlated "Wigner molecule" for large dots is studied, and the behaviour at the crossover is determined. In sufficiently large dots, a recently proposed mapping to an effective charge-spin model is investigated, and is found to produce the correct ordering of the energy levels and to give a good first approximation to the size o…
We investigate the effect of electron-electron interactions on Aharonov-Bohm (AB) current oscillations in nanorings formed by a chain of metallic quantum dots. We demonstrate that electron-electron interactions cause electron dephasing thereby suppressing the amplitude of AB oscillations at all temperatures down to T=0. The crossover between thermal and quantum dephasing is found to be controlled by the ring perimeter. Our predictions can be directly tested in future experiments.
We study the effect of electron-electron interaction on the conductance of open quantum dots. We find that Coulomb interactions (i) do not affect the ensemble averaged conductance <G> if time-reversal symmetry has been broken by a magnetic field, (ii) enhance weak localization and weak anti-localization corrections to <G> in the absence of a magnetic field, (iii) increase conductance fluctuations, and (iv) enhance the effect of short trajectories on the conductivity of quantum dot.
We investigate the effects of point charge defects on the single particle electronic structure, emission energies, fine structure splitting and oscillator strengths of excitonic transitions in strained In$_{0.6}$Ga$_{0.4}$As/GaAs and strain-free GaAs/Al$_{0.3}$Ga$_{0.7}$As quantum dots. We find that the charged defects significantly modify the single particle electronic structure and excitonic spectra in both strained and strain-free structures. However, the excitonic fine structure splitting, polarization anisotropy and polarization direction in strained quantum dots remain nearly unaffected,…
We discuss the properties of few electrons and electron-hole pairs confined in coupled semiconductor quantum dots, with emphasis on correlation effects and the role of tunneling. We shall discuss, in particular, exact diagonalization results for biexciton binding energy, electron-hole localization, magnetic-field induced Wigner molecules, and spin ordering.
We derive a complete expression for the interaction correction to the $I-V$ curve of two connected in series metallic quantum dots. For strongly asymmetric dots in a wide range of parameters this interaction correction depends logarithmically on voltage and temperature.
We studied experimentally the dynamics of the exchange interaction between two antiparallel electron spins in a so-called metastable double quantum dot where coupling to the electron reservoirs can be ignored. We demonstrate that the level of control of such a double dot is higher than in conventional double dots. In particular, it allows to couple coherently two electron spins in an efficient manner following a scheme initially proposed by Loss and DiVincenzo. The present study demonstrates that metastable quantum dots are a possible route to increase the number of coherently coupled quantum …
The electronic spin precession in semiconductor dots is strongly affected by the spin-orbit coupling. We present a theory of the electronic spin resonance at low magnetic fields that predicts a strong dependence on the dot occupation, the magnetic field and the spin-orbit coupling strength. Coulomb interaction effects are also taken into account in a numerical approach.
We use numerically exact Chebyshev expansion and kernel polynomial methods to study transport through circular graphene quantum dots in the framework of a tight-binding honeycomb lattice model. Our focus lies on the regime where individual modes of the electrostatically defined dot dominate the charge carrier dynamics. In particular, we discuss the scattering of an injected Dirac electron wave packet for a single quantum dot, electron confinement in the dot, the optical excitation of dot-bound modes, and the propagation of an electronic excitation along a linear array of dots.
We present an experimental study of electron-electron exchange interaction in self-assembled CdTe/ZnTe quantum dots based on the photoluminescence measurements. The character and strength of this interaction are obtained by simultaneous observation of various recombination channels of a doubly negatively charged exciton, including previously unrecognized emission lines related to the electron-singlet configuration in the final state. A typical value of the electron singlet-triplet splitting, which corresponds to the exchange integral of electron-electron interaction, has been determined as 20.…
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…
Measuring single-electron charge is one of the most fundamental quantum technologies. Charge sensing, which is an ingredient for the measurement of single spins or single photons, has been already developed for semiconductor gate-defined quantum dots, leading to intensive studies on the physics and the applications of single-electron charge, single-electron spin and photon-electron quantum interface. However, the technology has not yet been realized for self-assembled quantum dots despite their fascinating quantum transport phenomena and outstanding optical functionalities. In this paper, we r…
Few-electron quantum dots are investigated in the regime of strong tunneling to the leads. Inelastic cotunneling is used to measure the two-electron singlet-triplet splitting above and below a magnetic field driven singlet-triplet transition. Evidence for a non-equilibrium two-electron singlet-triplet Kondo effect is presented. Cotunneling allows orbital correlations and parameters characterizing entanglement of the two-electron singlet ground state to be extracted from dc transport.
A one-band model within the effective mass approximation is adopted to characterize the energy structure and oscillator strength of type-II semiconductor spherical core-shell quantum dots. The heteroepitaxial strain of the core-shell heterostructure is modeled by the elastic continuum approach. The model is applied to ZnTe/ZnSe core-shell, a wide band gap type-II heterostructure. The simulated absorption spectra are in fair agreement with available experimental results.
We present a study of the electronic structure of two laterally coupled gaussian quantum dots filled with two particles. The exact diagonalization method has been used in order to inspect the spatial correlations and examine the particular spin singlet-triplet configurations for different coupling degrees between quantum dots. The outcome of our research shows this structure to have highly modifiable properties promoting it as an interesting quantum device, showing the possible use of this states as a quantum bit gate.
We evaluate the Lande g factor of electrons in quantum dots (QDs) fabricated from GaAs quantum well (QW) structures of different well width. We first determine the Lande electron g factor of the QWs through resistive detection of electron spin resonance and compare it to the enhanced electron g factor determined from analysis of the magneto-transport. Next, we form laterally defined quantum dots using these quantum wells and extract the electron g factor from analysis of the cotunneling and Kondo effect within the quantum dots. We conclude that the Lande electron g factor of the quantum dot is…
Spin relaxation of electrons doped in InP quantum dots was studied by means of luminescence pump-probe and Hanle measurements. Optical pumping makes spins of doped electrons to be oriented in parallel to the helicity of the circularly polarized excitation. The luminescence pump-probe showed the spin orientation of the doped electrons decay on a millisecond time-scale. Hanle measurement clarified the spin dephasing relaxation time of doped electrons is 1.7 ns which is explained by the frozen fluctuation of nuclear spins.
This thesis describes capacitance and tunneling experiments performed on two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) and quantum dot systems. It develops a system of equations that allow determination, by means of capacitance measurements, of the electronic density of states, the electron density, and the chemical potential in a 2DEG. The thesis describes the use of these techniques in the observation of a magnetic field induced energy gap to tunneling in the 2DEG and the single electron addition spectrum in arrays of quantum dots.
Charge-based quantum computation can be attained through reliable control of single electrons in lead-less quantum systems. Single-charge transitions in electrically-isolated double quantum dots (DQD) realised in phosphorus-doped silicon can be detected via capacitively coupled single-electron tunnelling devices. By means of time-resolved measurements of the detector's conductance, we investigate the dots' occupancy statistics in temperature. We observe a significant reduction of the effective electron temperature in the DQD as compared to the temperature in the detector's leads. This sets pro…
We here propose a mechanism to teleport electrons between quantum dots through the transformation of a virtual bright exciton into a dark exciton. This mechanism relies on the interactions of two composite bosons: a pair of electrons with opposite spins, trapped in two dots and an electron-hole pair in a free exciton coupled to an unabsorbed pump pulse, which makes it ``bright'' but virtual. This bright exciton first turns ``dark'' by dropping its electron and stealing the trapped electron with opposite spin through an exchange Coulomb process with the trapped pair. In a second step, the dark …
We report the fabrication and measurement of one-electron single and double quantum dots with fast tunnel rates in a Si/SiGe heterostructure. Achieving fast tunnel rates in few-electron dots can be challenging, in part due to the large electron effective mass in Si. Using charge sensing, we identify signatures of tunnel rates in and out of the dot that are fast or slow compared to the measurement rate. Such signatures provide a means to calibrate the absolute electron number and verify single electron occupation. Pulsed gate voltage measurements are used to validate the approach.
We present a detailed theoretical investigation of the effect of Coulomb interactions on electron transport through quantum dots and double barrier structures connected to a voltage source via an arbitrary linear impedance. Combining real time path integral techniques with the scattering matrix approach we derive the effective action and evaluate the current-voltage characteristics of quantum dots at sufficiently large conductances. Our analysis reveals a reach variety of different regimes which we specify in details for the case of chaotic quantum dots. At sufficiently low energies the intera…
The authors report that anisotropic confining potentials in laterally-coupled semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) have large impacts in optical transitions and energies of inter-shell collective electronic excitations. The observed anisotropies are revealed by inelastic light scattering as a function of the in-plane direction of light polarization and can be finely controlled by modifying the geometrical shape of the QDs. These experiments show that the tuning of the QD confinement potential offers a powerful method to manipulate electronic states and far-infrared inter-shell optical transitions …
We theoretically investigate correlated electron-hole states in vertically coupled quantum dots. Employing a prototypical double-dot confinement and a configuration-interaction description for the electron-hole states, it is shown that the few-particle ground state undergoes transitions between different quantum states as a function of the interdot distance, resulting in unexpected spatial correlations among carriers and in electron-hole localization. Such transitions provide a direct manifestations of inter- and intradot correlations, which can be directly monitored in experiments.
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 perform time-dependent simulations of spin exchange for an electron pair in laterally coupled quantum dots. The calculation is based on configuration interaction scheme accounting for spin-orbit (SO) coupling and electron-electron interaction in a numerically exact way. Noninteracting electrons exchange orientations of their spins in a manner that can be understood by interdot tunneling associated with spin precession in an effective SO magnetic field that results in anisotropy of the spin swap. The Coulomb interaction blocks the electron transfer between the dots but the spin transfer and …
Quantum dots pose a problem where one must confront three obstacles: randomness, interactions and finite size. Yet it is this confluence that allows one to make some theoretical advances by invoking three theoretical tools: Random Matrix theory (RMT), the Renormalization Group (RG) and the 1/N expansion. Here the reader is introduced to these techniques and shown how they may be combined to answer a set of questions pertaining to quantum dots
Motivated by recent experiments, we investigate the electron-vibron coupling in suspended carbon nanotube quantum dots, starting with the electron-phonon coupling of the underlying graphene layer. We show that the coupling strength depends sensitively on the type of vibron and is strongly sample dependent. The coupling strength becomes particularly strong when inhomogeneity-induced electronic quantum dots are located near regions where the vibronic mode is associated with large strain. Specifically, we find that the longitudinal stretching mode and the radial breathing mode are coupled via the…
We calculate the magnetization of quantum dots deviating from circular symmetry for noninteracting electrons or electrons interacting according to the Hartree approximation. For few electrons the magnetization is found to depend on their number, and the shape of the dot. The magnetization is an ideal probe into the many-electron state of a quantum dot.
We report on non-linear magneto-tunneling experiments carried out in single GaAs vertical quantum dots. We show that conduction at low voltage bias can be a spectroscopic tool for both the ground state and first excited states of few electrons on the dot. Increasing voltage a large resonant peak is observed and attributed to tunneling across the quasi-continuum of higher excited states.
It has been experimentally shown that negative exchange interactions can arise in a linear three-dot system when a two-electron double quantum dot is exchange coupled to a larger quantum dot containing on the order of one hundred electrons. The origin of this negative exchange can be traced to the larger quantum dot exhibiting a spin triplet-like rather than singlet-like ground state. Here, we show using a microscopic model based on the configuration interaction (CI) method that both triplet-like and singlet-like ground states are realized depending on the number of electrons. In the case of o…
In double quantum dots, the exchange interaction between two electron spins renormalizes the excitation energy of pair-flips in the nuclear spin bath, which in turn modifies the non-Markovian bath dynamics. As the energy renormalization varies with the Overhauser field mismatch between the quantum dots, the electron singlet-triplet decoherence resulting from the bath dynamics depends on sampling of nuclear spin states from an ensemble, leading to the transition from exponential decoherence in single-sample dynamics to power-law decay under ensemble averaging. In contrast, the decoherence of a …
Charged impurities in semiconductor quantum dots comprise one of the main obstacles to achieving scalable fabrication and manipulation of singlet-triplet spin qubits. We theoretically show that using dots that contain several electrons each can help to overcome this problem through the screening of the rough and noisy impurity potential by the excess electrons. We demonstrate how the desired screening properties turn on as the number of electrons is increased, and we characterize the properties of a double quantum dot singlet-triplet qubit for small odd numbers of electrons per dot. We show th…
We study the electron states of a chain of non-identical, vertically stacked quantum dots (QDs). We discuss how the pseudo-band formed of the ground states confined in the QDs disintegrates upon increasing the inhomogeneity of the electron energies and analyze the impact of localization on the intraband absorption from the pseudo-band to extended (bulk) states. We describe also the dependence of the intraband absorption spectrum on the QD size.
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 analyzed time evolution of the localized charge in the system of two interacting single level quantum dots (QDs) coupled with the continuous spectrum states in the presence of electron-phonon interaction. We demonstrated that electron-phonon interaction leads to the increasing of localized charge relaxation rate. We also found that several time scales with different relaxation rates appear in the system in the case of non-resonant tunneling between the dots. We revealed the formation of oscillations in the filling numbers time evolution caused by the emission and adsorption processes of pho…
We observe a low-lying sharp spin mode of three interacting electrons in an array of nanofabricated AlGaAs/GaAs quantum dots by means of resonant inelastic light scattering. The finding is enabled by a suppression of the inhomogeneous contribution to the excitation spectra obtained by reducing the number of optically-probed quantum dots. Supported by configuration-interaction calculations we argue that the observed spin mode offers a direct probe of Stoner ferromagnetism in the simplest case of three interacting spin one-half fermions.
We examine the full counting statistics of electron transport through double quantum dots coupled in series, with particular attention being paid to the unique features originating from level renormalization. It is clearly illustrated that the energy renormalization gives rise to a dynamic charge blockade mechanism, which eventually results in super-Poissonian noise. Coupling of the double dots to an external heat bath leads to dephasing and relaxation mechanisms, which are demonstrated to suppress the noise in a unique way.
Molecular beam epitaxy is employed to manufacture self-assembled InAs/GaAs quantum dot Schottky resonant tunneling diodes. By virtue of a thin AlAs insertion barrier, the thermal current is effectively reduced and electron resonant tunneling through quantum dots under both forward and reverse biased conditions is observed at relatively high temperature of 77K. The ground states of quantum dots are found to be at ~0.19eV below the conduction band of GaAs matrix. The theoretical computations are in conformity with experimental data.
Free standing beams containing a two-dimensional electron system are shaped from a GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure. Quantum point contacts and (double) quantum dots are laterally defined using metal top gates. We investigate the electronic properties of these nanostructures by transport spectroscopy. Tunable localized electron states in freely suspended nanostructures are a promising tool to investigate the electron-phonon-interaction.
