Electrical control of phonon mediated spin relaxation rate in semiconductor quantum dots: the Rashba vs the Dresselhaus spin-orbit couplings

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that spin-hot spots can be induced in symmetric quantum dots with Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling by applying external gate-induced anisotropy, significantly affecting spin relaxation rates relevant for quantum computing.

Contribution

It provides the first analytical and numerical evidence that Dresselhaus coupling can produce spin-hot spots through anisotropy, guiding quantum dot spin device design.

Findings

Spin-hot spots can be induced in Dresselhaus-dominated quantum dots via external gates.

Spin transition rates increase and decoherence times decrease near spin-hot spots.

Theoretical results can help interpret experimental phonon-mediated spin-flip data.

Abstract

In symmetric quantum dots (QDs), it is well known that the spin-hot spot (i.e., the cusp-like structure due to the presence of degeneracy near the level or anticrossing point) is present for the pure Rashba case but is absent for the pure Dresselhaus case [Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 076805 (2005)]. Since the Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling dominates over the Rashba spin-orbit coupling in GaAs and GaSb QDs, it is important to find the exact location of the spin-hot spot or the cusp-like structure even for the pure Dresselhaus case. In this paper, for the first time, we present analytical and numerical results that show that the spin-hot spot can also be seen for the pure Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling case by inducing large anisotropy through external gates. At or nearby the spin-hot spot, the spin transition rate enhances and the decoherence time reduces by several orders of magnitude compared to the case with no spin-hot spot. Thus one should avoid such locations when designing QD spin based transistors for the possible implementation in quantum logic gates, solid state quantum computing and quantum information processing. It is also possible to extract the exact experimental data (Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 046803 (2008)) for the phonon mediated spin-flip rates from our developed theoretical model.