Spin-Lattice Relaxation Times of Single Donors and Donor Clusters in Silicon

Yu-Ling Hsueh, Holger Büch, Yaohua Tan, Yu Wang, Lloyd C. L. Hollenberg, Gerhard Klimeck, Michelle Y. Simmons, and Rajib Rahman
Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 246406 – Published 11 December 2014

Abstract

An atomistic method of calculating the spin-lattice relaxation times (T1) is presented for donors in silicon nanostructures comprising of millions of atoms. The method takes into account the full band structure of silicon including the spin-orbit interaction. The electron-phonon Hamiltonian, and hence, the deformation potential, is directly evaluated from the strain-dependent tight-binding Hamiltonian. The technique is applied to single donors and donor clusters in silicon, and explains the variation of T1 with the number of donors and electrons, as well as donor locations. Without any adjustable parameters, the relaxation rates in a magnetic field for both systems are found to vary as B5, in excellent quantitative agreement with experimental measurements. The results also show that by engineering electronic wave functions in nanostructures, T1 times can be varied by orders of magnitude.

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  • Received 14 March 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.246406

© 2014 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Yu-Ling Hsueh1,*, Holger Büch2, Yaohua Tan1, Yu Wang1, Lloyd C. L. Hollenberg3, Gerhard Klimeck1, Michelle Y. Simmons2, and Rajib Rahman1,†

  • 1Network for Computational Nanotechnology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA
  • 2Center for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology, School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
  • 3Center for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology, School of Physics, University of Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia

  • *hsuehy@purdue.edu
  • rrahman@purdue.edu

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Issue

Vol. 113, Iss. 24 — 12 December 2014

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