Giant anisotropy of spin relaxation and spin-valley mixing in a silicon quantum dot

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that the anisotropic orientation of an in-plane magnetic field can significantly suppress spin relaxation hot spots in silicon quantum dots by modulating spin-valley mixing effects.

Contribution

We experimentally show that the hot spot in silicon quantum dots can be suppressed by magnetic field orientation, revealing a controllable anisotropy in spin relaxation.

Findings

Hot spot suppression exceeds 100x at optimal magnetic field angle.

Spin relaxation rate exhibits sinusoidal angular dependence with 180° periodicity.

Model incorporating spin-valley and spin-orbit mixing explains observed anisotropy.

Abstract

In silicon quantum dots (QDs), at a certain magnetic field commonly referred to as the "hot spot", the electron spin relaxation rate (T_1^(-1)) can be drastically enhanced due to strong spin-valley mixing. Here, we experimentally find that with a valley splitting of 78.2 ${\pm}$ 1.6 ${\mu}$eV, this hot spot in spin relaxation can be suppressed by more than 2 orders of magnitude when the in-plane magnetic field is oriented at an optimal angle, about 9{\deg} from the [100] sample plane. This directional anisotropy exhibits a sinusoidal modulation with a 180{\deg} periodicity. We explain the magnitude and phase of this modulation using a model that accounts for both spin-valley mixing and intravalley spin-orbit mixing. The generality of this phenomenon is also confirmed by tuning the electric field and the valley splitting up to 268.2 ${\pm}$ 0.7 ${\mu}$eV.