Hybrid optical-electrical detection of donor electron spins with bound excitons in silicon

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a novel electrical detection method for donor electron spins in silicon using optically-driven bound exciton transitions, enabling long coherence times and potential for single-spin readout in quantum devices.

Contribution

It introduces a new electrical detection technique for phosphorus donor spins in silicon that does not rely on ancillary spins, improving coherence and scalability.

Findings

Successfully measured electron spin Rabi oscillations.

Achieved long intrinsic electron spin coherence times.

Addressed effects of strain, electric fields, and non-resonant excitation.

Abstract

Electrical detection of spins is an essential tool in understanding the dynamics of spins in semiconductor devices, providing valuable insights for applications ranging from optoelectronics and spintronics to quantum information processing. For electron spins bound to shallow donors in silicon, bulk electrically-detected magnetic resonance has relied on coupling to spin readout partners such as paramagnetic defects or conduction electrons which fundamentally limits spin coherence times. Here we demonstrate electrical detection of phosphorus donor electron spin resonance by transport through a silicon device, using optically-driven donor-bound exciton transitions. We use this method to measure electron spin Rabi oscillations, and, by avoiding use of an ancillary spin for readout, we are able to obtain long intrinsic electron spin coherence times, limited only by the donor concentration. We go on to experimentally address critical issues for adopting this scheme for single spin measurement in silicon nanodevices, including the effects of strain, electric fields, and non-resonant excitation. This lays the foundations for realising a versatile readout method for single spin readout with relaxed magnetic field and temperature requirements compared with spin-dependent tunneling.