First principles computations of the Stark shift of a defect-bound exciton: the case of the T center in silicon

TL;DR

This study uses first principles calculations to analyze the Stark shift of the T center defect in silicon, revealing its sensitivity to electric fields and providing insights into its potential for quantum information applications.

Contribution

It presents the first first-principles calculation of the Stark shift for the T center in silicon, addressing the challenge of defect-bound exciton modeling with supercell convergence.

Findings

Exciton binding energy of 28.5 meV matches experimental data.

Calculated dipole moment change indicates modest Stark shift sensitivity.

Bound-exciton defects are highly sensitive to local electric fields.

Abstract

The T center in silicon has recently drawn a lot of attention for its potential in quantum information science. The sensitivity of the zero-phonon line (ZPL) to electrical field was recently investigated by a combination of different experimental methods but there is still no first principles study on the Stark shift of the T center. Dealing with the defect-bound exciton nature of the excited state is particularly challenging using density functional theory because of the large spatial delocalization associated with the wavefunction. Here, we tackle this issue by performing a convergence study over the supercell size. We obtain an exciton binding energy of 28.5meV, in good agreement with experimental results. We then calculate the Stark shift through the dipole moment change of the ZPL transition of the T center using the modern theory of polarization formalism and find a modest linear coefficient of $\Delta \mu$=0.79D along X and $\Delta \mu$=0.03D along Y. We discuss our results in light of the recent experimental measurements of the Stark shift. Our analysis suggests that bound-exciton defects could be particularly sensitive to local field effect as a result of their large spatial extent.