Voltage-Selective Bi-directional Polarization and Coherent Rotation of Nuclear Spins in Quantum Dots

Ryo Takahashi, Kimitoshi Kono, Seigo Tarucha, Keiji Ono

Published 2010-12-21, updated 2011-04-19Version 3

We proposed and demonstrated that the nuclear spins of the host lattice in GaAs double quantum dots can be strongly polarized in either of two opposite directions, parallel or antiparallel to an external magnetic field. The direction is selected simply by adjusting the dc source-drain voltage of the device. This nuclear polarization manifests itself by repeated controlled electron-nuclear spin scattering in the Pauli spin blockade state. Polarized nuclei are also controlled coherently by means of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). This work confirmed that the nuclear spins in quantum dots are indeed long-lived quantum states with a coherence time of up to 1 ms, and may be a promising resource for quantum information processing such as quantum memories for electron spin qubits.