Quantum control of spins in semiconductor nanostructures

Abstract

Spins localized in semiconductor nanostructures have been intensively investigated for quantum spintronics. These include the spin of single electron localized by quantum dots or impurities, and spins of the lattice nuclei. These localized spins can be exploited as carriers of quantum information, while in some circumstances they also play the role of deleterious noise sources for other quantum objects through their couplings. Quantum control of the spins in semiconductor nanostructures is therefore of central interest for quantum applications. In this thesis, we address several problems related to the quantum control of electron or hole spin and nuclear spins in semiconductor quantum dots and impurity centers. The first problem studied is the control of nuclear spin bath for a hole spin qubit in III-V semiconductor quantum dot. In quantum dots formed on III-V compounds, the direct band gap of the host material allows ultrafast optical addressability of a single electron or hole spin qubit. However, nonzero nuclear spins of group III and group V elements result in a large statistical fluctuation in the Zeeman splitting of the spin qubit which then dephases in nanosecond time scale. We present a novel feedback scheme to suppress the statistical fluctuation of the nuclear spin field for enhancing the coherence time of the hole spin qubit. We also find positive feedback control which can amplify the magnitude of the nuclear field, so that a bimodal distribution can develop, realizing a quantum environment that can not be described by a single temperature. The second problem addressed here is the control of donor spin qubits in silicon architecture which have ultra-long quantum coherence time. We developed the quantum control scheme to realize the quantum metrology of magnetic field gradient, based on the celebrated Kane’s architecture for quantum computation. The scheme can also be generalized to calibrate the locations of the donors. In the third part of the thesis, we investigate a novel type of quantum dot formed in a new class of two-dimensional semiconductors, monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), which exhibit interesting spin and pseudospin physics. This novel quantum dot system may offer new opportunity for quantum spintronics in the ultimate 2D limit, and we investigate here the valley pseudospin as a possible quantum bit carrier. A main finding is that, contrary to the intuition, the lateral confinement by the quantum dot potential does not lead to noticeable valley hybridization, and therefore the valley pseudospin in monolayer TMDs QD can well inherit the valley physics such as the valley optical selection rules from the 2D bulk which implies a variety of quantum control possibilities.