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Ultrafast control of donor-bound electron spins with single detuned optical pulses

Nature Physics volume 4, pages 780–784 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

The ability to control spins in semiconductors is important in a variety of fields, including spintronics and quantum information processing. Due to the potentially fast dephasing times of spins in the solid state1,2,3, spin control operating on the picosecond timescale, or faster, may be necessary. Such speeds—which are not possible to reach with standard electron spin resonance techniques based on microwave sources—can be attained with broadband optical pulses. One promising ultrafast technique uses single broadband pulses detuned from resonance in a three-level Λ system4. This technique is robust against optical-pulse imperfections and does not require a fixed optical reference phase. Here we demonstrate, theoretically and experimentally, the principle of coherent manipulation of spins using this approach. Spin rotations with areas exceeding π/4 for a single pulse and π/2 for two pulses are achieved for donor-bound electrons. This technique might find applications from basic solid-state electron spin resonance spectroscopy to arbitrary single-qubit rotations4,5 and bang–bang control6 for quantum computation.

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Figure 1: n-level energy diagram with an applied time-dependent electric field.
Figure 2: Description of the single-pulse experiment and results.
Figure 3: Description of the double-pulse experiment and results.
Figure 4: Theoretical calculation of the fidelity of π-pulses versus number of pulses applied in phase.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank S. Harris and J. Pelc for discussions. S.M.C. was partially supported by the HP Fellowship Program through CIS. This work was financially supported by the MURI Center for Photonic Quantum Information Systems (ARO/ARDA Program DAAD 19-03-1-0199), the JST/SORST Program for the Research of Quantum Information Systems for Which Light is Used, and the University of Tokyo (CINQIE) Special Coordination Funds for Promoting Science and Technology, the “Qubus quantum computer program” MEXT and NICT program on Quantum Repeaters.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Information and Quantum Systems Lab, Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, 1501 Page Mill Road, MS1123, Palo Alto, California 94304, USA

    Kai-Mei C. Fu & Charles Santori

  2. Edward L. Ginzton Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305-4088, USA

    Susan M. Clark & Yoshihisa Yamamoto

  3. Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering, Oakfield Avenue, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8LT, UK

    Colin R. Stanley & M. C. Holland

  4. National Institute of Informatics, 2-1-2 Hitotsubashi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101-8430, Japan

    Yoshihisa Yamamoto

Authors
  1. Kai-Mei C. Fu
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  2. Susan M. Clark
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  3. Charles Santori
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  4. Colin R. Stanley
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  5. M. C. Holland
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  6. Yoshihisa Yamamoto
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Contributions

C.R.S. and M.C.H. provided the sample. K-M.C.F and S.M.C. designed, built and carried out the experiment. K-M.C.F. analysed and modelled the experimental data and did the majority of the writing, with significant contributions from S.M.C. S.M.C. contributed the theoretical multiple-small-angle-pulse model. C.S. and Y.Y. contributed throughout the experimental process from the conception to the writing through useful suggestions, comments and discussions.

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Correspondence to Kai-Mei C. Fu.

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Fu, KM., Clark, S., Santori, C. et al. Ultrafast control of donor-bound electron spins with single detuned optical pulses. Nature Phys 4, 780–784 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1052

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