Decoherence of electron spins in isotopically enriched silicon near Clock Transitions

TL;DR

This study models electron spin decoherence in isotopically enriched silicon near Clock Transitions, revealing mechanisms that could optimize qubit coherence and highlighting the role of non-magnetic strains in experimental discrepancies.

Contribution

It provides a detailed quantum bath analysis of spin decoherence near Clock Transitions, identifying regimes that suppress forbidden channels and proposing Dipolar Refocusing Points for improved coherence.

Findings

Forbidden channels can be suppressed in certain regimes.

Experimental enhancements are larger than theoretical predictions, likely due to non-magnetic strains.

Dipolar Refocusing Points can fully refocus dipolar interactions.

Abstract

Despite the importance of isotopically purified samples in current experiments, there have been few corresponding studies of spin qubit decoherence using full quantum bath calculations. Isotopic purification eliminates the well-studied nuclear spin baths which usually dominate decoherence. We model the coherence of electronic spin qubits in silicon near so called Clock Transitions (CT) where experiments have electronic $T_{2e}$ times of seconds. Despite the apparent simplicity of the residual decoherence mechanism, this regime is not well understood: the state mixing which underpins CTs allows also a proliferation of contributions from usually forbidden channels (direct flip-flops with non-resonant spins); in addition, the magnitude and effects of the corresponding Overhauser fields and other detunings is not well quantified. For purely magnetic detunings, we identify a regime, potentially favourable for quantum computing, where forbidden channels are completely suppressed but spins in resonant states are fully released from Overhauser fields and applied magnetic field gradients. We show by a general argument that the enhancement between this regime and the high field limit is $< 8$, regardless of density, while enhancements of order 50 are measured experimentally. We propose that this discrepancy is likely to arise from strains of exclusively non-magnetic origin, underlining the potential of CTs for isolating and probing different types of inhomogeneities. We also identify a set of fields, "Dipolar Refocusing Points" (DRPs), where the Hahn echo fully refocuses the effect of the dipolar interaction.