Phonon influence on the measurement of spin states in double quantum dots using the quantum point contact

Łukasz Marcinowski, Katarzyna Roszak, Paweł Machnikowski, Mateusz Krzyżosiak

Published 2013-03-26, updated 2013-11-22Version 2

We study the influence of phonon scattering on the single-triplet measurement of two-electron spin states in a double quantum dot doped with two electrons. We point out that at low temperatures phonon-induced relaxation to the ground state suppresses transitions to doubly occupied singlet states which are the source of detectable current fluctuations in this measurement scheme. Thus, for a relatively strong electron-phonon interaction present in the system, the two configurations display the same noise characteristics. In this way, coupling to phonons reduces the distinguishability between the singlet and triplet configurations. Under such conditions, the measurement scheme is no longer valid even though the temporal characteristics of the measurement process and measurement- induced localization are essentially unchanged.