Nuclear Spin Dynamics of Ionized Phosphorus Donors in Silicon

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the coherent control and electrical readout of ionized phosphorus donor nuclear spins in silicon, revealing a significantly extended coherence time and potential for quantum memory applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method for controlling and reading ionized donor nuclear spins, achieving a coherence time 100 times longer than in neutral donors.

Findings

Nuclear-spin coherence time of 18 ms in ionized donors

Enhanced sensitivity in electrically detected electron nuclear double resonance

Access to the lifetime of parallel electron spin pairs

Abstract

We demonstrate the coherent control and electrical readout of the nuclear spins of ionized phosphorus donors in natural silicon. By combining pulsed illumination with coherent electron spin manipulation, we selectively ionize the donor depending on its nuclear spin state, exploiting a spin-dependent recombination process via a spin pair at the Si/SiO2 interface. The nuclear-spin coherence time of the ionized donor is 18 ms, two orders of magnitude longer than in the neutral donor state, rendering the ionized donor a potential resource as a quantum memory. The presented experimental techniques allow for spectroscopy of ionized-donor nuclear spins, increase the sensitivity of electrically detected electron nuclear double resonance by more than two orders of magnitude, and give experimental access to the lifetime of parallel electron spin pairs.