Large Stark Effect for Li Donor Spins in Si

TL;DR

This paper investigates how static electric fields affect lithium donor spins in silicon, revealing a large Stark effect that enables electric control of spin properties relevant for quantum computing.

Contribution

The study introduces a new variational wave function for arbitrary fields and analyzes the anisotropic Stark susceptibility and its impact on spin qubits in silicon.

Findings

Quadratic Stark shifts are equivalent to external stress effects.

Strong electric modulation of the donor spin g-factor is possible.

Random strains influence the observability of Stark shifts.

Abstract

We study the effect of a static electric field on lithium donor spins in silicon. The anisotropy of the effective mass leads to the anisotropy of the quadratic Stark susceptibility, which we determined using the Dalgarno-Lewis exact summation method. The theory is asymptotically exact in the field domain below Li-donor ionization threshold, relevant to the Stark-tuning electron spin resonance experiments. To obtain the generalized Stark susceptibilities at arbitrary fields, we propose a new variational wave function which reproduces the exact results in the low-field limit. With the calculated susceptibilities at hand, we are able to predict and analyze several important physical effects. First, we observe that the energy level shifts due to the quadratic Stark effect for Li donors in Si are equivalent to, and can be mapped onto, those produced by an external stress. Second, we demonstrate that the Stark effect anisotropy, combined with the unique valley-orbit splitting of a Li donor in Si, spin-orbit interaction and specially tuned external stress, may lead to a very strong modulation of the donor spin $g$-factor by the electric field. Third, we investigate the influence of random strains on the $g$-factor shifts and quantify the random strain limits and requirements to Si material purity necessary to observe the $g$-factor Stark shifts experimentally. Finally, we discuss possible implications of our results for quantum information processing with Li spin qubits in Si.