Abstract
In this chapter we theoretically show that intriguing features of coherent many-body physics can be observed in electron transport through a quantum dot (QD). We first derive a master equation based framework for electron transport in the Coulomb-blockade regime which includes hyperfine (HF) interaction with the nuclear spin ensemble in the QD.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
For finite polarization the initial covariance matrix has been determined heuristically from the dark state condition \(\langle A^{-}A^{+}\rangle =0\) in the homogeneous limit.
- 2.
This limit is realized if strong nuclear dephasing processes prevent the coherence build-up of the SR evolution.
References
T. Brandes, Coherent and collective quantum optical effects in mesoscopic systems. Phys. Reports 408(5–6), 315 (2005)
D.D. Awschalom, N. Samarath, D. Loss, Semiconductor Spintronics and Quantum Computation (Springer, Berlin, 2002)
D.Y. Sharvin, Y.V. Sharvin, Magnetic-flux quantization in a cylindrical film of a normal metal. JETP Lett. 34(7), 272 (1981)
B.J. van Wees, H. van Houten, C.W.J. Beenakker, J.G. Williamson, L.P. Kouwenhoven, D. van der Marel, C.T. Foxon, Quantized conductance of point contacts in a two-dimensional electron gas. Phys. Rev. Lett. 60(9), 848 (1988)
D.A. Wharam, T.J. Thornton, R. Newbury, M. Pepper, H. Ahmed, J.E.F. Frost, D.G. Hasko, D.C. Peacock, D.A. Ritchie, G.A.C. Jones, One-dimensional transport and the quantisation of the ballistic resistance. J. Phys. C Solid State Phys. 21(8), L209 (2000)
Y.V. Nazarov, Y.M. Blanter, Quantum Transport (Cambridge University Press, Cambrigde, 2009)
S. Datta, Electronic Transport in Mesoscopic Systems (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997)
R. Hanson, L.P. Kouwenhoven, J.R. Petta, S. Tarucha, L.M.K. Vandersypen, Spins in few-electron quantum dots. Rev. Mod. Phys. 79, 1217 (2007)
W.G. van der Wiel, S. De Franceschi, J.M. Elzerman, T. Fujisawa, S. Tarucha, L.P. Kouwenhoven, Electron transport through double quantum dots. Rev. Mod. Phys. 75, 1 (2002)
A.C. Johnson, J.R. Petta, J.M. Taylor, A. Yacoby, M.D. Lukin, C.M. Marcus, M.P. Hanson, A.C. Gossard, Triplet-singlet spin relaxation via nuclei in a double quantum dot. Nature 435, 925 (2005)
O.N. Jouravlev, Y.V. Nazarov, Electron transport in a double quantum dot governed by a nuclear magnetic field. Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 176804 (2006)
J. Baugh, Y. Kitamura, K. Ono, S. Tarucha, Large nuclear Overhauser fields detected in vertically-coupled double quantum dots. Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 096804 (2007)
J.R. Petta, J.M. Taylor, A.C. Johnson, A. Yacoby, M.D. Lukin, C.M. Marcus, M.P. Hanson, A.C. Gossard, Dynamic nuclear polarization with single electron spins. Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 067601 (2008)
J. Iñarrea, G. Platero, A.H. MacDonald, Electronic transport through a double quantum dot in the spin-blockade regime: theoretical models. Phys. Rev. B 76(8), 085329 (2007)
F.H.L. Koppens, J.A. Folk, J.M. Elzerman, R. Hanson, L.H. Willems van Beveren, I.T. Vink, H.-P. Tranitz, W. Wegscheider, L.P. Kouwenhoven, L.M.K. Vandersypen, Control and detection of singlet-triplet mixing in a random nuclear field. Science 309, 1346 (2005)
K. Ono, S. Tarucha, Nuclear-spin-induced oscillatory current in spin-blockaded quantum dots. Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 256803 (2004)
A. Pfund, I. Shorubalko, K. Ensslin, R. Leturcq, Suppression of spin relaxation in an in as nanowire double quantum dot. Phys. Rev. Lett. 99(3), 036801 (2007)
T. Kobayashi, K. Hitachi, S. Sasaki, K. Muraki, Observation of hysteretic transport due to dynamic nuclear spin polarization in a GaAs lateral double quantum dot. Phys. Rev. Lett. 107(21), 216802 (2011)
K. Ono, D.G. Austing, Y. Tokura, S. Tarucha, Current rectification by Pauli exclusion in a weakly coupled double quantum dot system. Science 297(5585), 1313 (2002)
M.S. Rudner, L.S. Levitov, Self-polarization and cooling of spins in quantum dots. Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 036602 (2007)
M. Eto, T. Ashiwa, M. Murata, Current-induced entanglement of nuclear spins in quantum dots. J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 73(2), 307 (2004)
H. Christ, J.I. Cirac, G. Giedke, Quantum description of nuclear spin cooling in a quantum dot. Phys. Rev. B 75, 155324 (2007)
R.H. Dicke, Coherence in spontaneous radiation processes. Phys. Rev. 93, 99 (1954)
M. Gross, S. Haroche, Superradiance: an essay on the theory of collective spontaneous emission. Phys. Reports 93, 301 (1982)
P. Recher, E.V. Sukhorukov, D. Loss, Quantum dot as spin filter and spin memory. Phys. Rev. Lett. 85(9), 1962 (2000)
R. Hanson, L.M.K. Vandersypen, L.H.W. van Beveren, J.M. Elzerman, I.T. Vink, L.P. Kouwenhoven, Semiconductor few-electron quantum dot operated as a bipolar spin filter. Phys. Rev. B 70(24), 241304 (2004)
E.M. Kessler, S. Yelin, M.D. Lukin, J.I. Cirac, G. Giedke, Optical superradiance from nuclear spin environment of single photon emitters. Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 143601 (2010)
J. Schliemann, A. Khaetskii, D. Loss, Electron spin dynamics in quantum dots and related nanostructures due to hyperfine interaction with nuclei. J. Phys. Condens. Matter 15(50), R1809 (2003)
H. Bruus, K. Flensberg, Many-body Quantum Theory in Condensed Matter Physics (Oxford University Press, New York, 2006)
Y. Yamamoto, A. Imamoglu, Mesoscopic Quantum Optics (Wiley, New York, 1999)
S. Welack, M. Esposito, U. Harbola, S. Mukamel, Interference effects in the counting statistics of electron transfers through a double quantum dot. Phys. Rev. B 77(19), 195315 (2008)
J.M. Taylor, J.R. Petta, A.C. Johnson, A. Yacoby, C.M. Marcus, M.D. Lukin, Relaxation, dephasing, and quantum control of electron spins in double quantum dots. Phys. Rev. B 76, 035315 (2007)
C. Cohen-Tannoudji, J. Dupont-Roc, G. Grynberg, Atom-Photon Interactions: Basic Processes and Applications (Wiley, New York, 1992)
C. Timm, Private Communication (2011)
C. Timm, Tunneling through molecules and quantum dots: master-equation approaches. Phys. Rev. B 77(19), 195416 (2008)
U. Harbola, M. Esposito, S. Mukamel, Quantum master equation for electron transport through quantum dots and single molecules. Phys. Rev. B 74(23), 235309 (2006)
H.-A. Engel, D. Loss, Single-spin dynamics and decoherence in a quantum dot via charge transport. Phys. Rev. B 65(19), 195321 (2002)
N. Zhao, J.-L. Zhu, R.-B. Liu, C.P. Sun, Quantum noise theory for quantum transport through nanostructures. New J. Phys. 13(1), 013005 (2011)
S.A. Gurvitz, Y.S. Prager, Microscopic derivation of rate equations for quantum transport. Phys. Rev. B 53(23), 15932 (1996)
S.A. Gurvitz, Rate equations for quantum transport in multidot systems. Phys. Rev. B 57(11), 6602 (1998)
H. Bluhm, S. Foletti, I. Neder, M. Rudner, D. Mahalu, V. Umansky, A. Yacoby, Dephasing time of GaAs electron-spin qubits coupled to a nuclear bath exceeding 200 \(\upmu \)s. Nat. Phys. 7(2), 109 (2010)
G.S. Agarwal, Master-equation approach to spontaneous emission. III. Many-body aspects of emission from two-level atoms and the effect of inhomogeneous broadening. Phys. Rev. A 4, 1791 (1971)
C. Leonardi, A. Vaglica, Superradiance and inhomogeneous broadening. II: spontaneous emission by many slightly detuned sources. Nuovo Cimento B Serie 67, 256 (1982)
V.V. Temnov, U. Woggon, Superradiance and subradiance in an inhomogeneously broadened ensemble of two-level systems coupled to a low-Q cavity. Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 243602 (2005)
D.A. Bagrets, Y.V. Nazarov, Full counting statistics of charge transfer in Coulomb blockade systems. Phys. Rev. B 67(8), 085316 (2003)
M. Esposito, U. Harbola, S. Mukamel, Nonequilibrium fluctuations, fluctuation theorems, and counting statistics in quantum systems. Rev. Mod. Phys. 81(4), 1665 (2009)
C. Emary, C. Pöltl, A. Carmele, J. Kabuss, A. Knorr, T. Brandes, Bunching and antibunching in electronic transport. Phys. Rev. B 85(16), 165417 (2012)
L.D. Contreras-Pulido, R. Aguado, Shot noise spectrum of artificial single-molecule magnets: measuring spin relaxation times via the Dicke effect. Phys. Rev. B 81(16), 161309(R) (2010)
H.J. Carmichael, Statistical Methods in Quantum Optics 1 (Springer, Berlin, 1999)
R. Hanson, B. Witkamp, L.M.K. Vandersypen, L.H.W. van Beveren, J.M. Elzerman, L.P. Kouwenhoven, Zeeman energy and spin relaxation in a one-electron quantum dot. Phys. Rev. Lett. 91(19), 196802 (2003)
D. Paget, Optical detection of NMR in high-purity GaAs: direct study of the relaxation of nuclei close to shallow donors. Phys. Rev. B 25, 4444 (1982)
T. Ota, G. Yusa, N. Kumada, S. Miyashita, T. Fujisawa, Y. Hirayama, Decoherence of nuclear spins due to direct dipole-dipole interactions probed by resistively detected nuclear magnetic resonance. Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 193101 (2007)
R. Takahashi, K. Kono, S. Tarucha, K. Ono, Voltage-selective bi-directional polarization and coherent rotation of nuclear spins in quantum dots. Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 026602 (2011)
H.J. Carmichael, Analytical and numerical results for the steady state in cooperative resonance fluorescence. J. Phys. B Atom. Mol. Phys. 13(18), 3551 (1980)
S. Morrison, A.S. Parkins, Collective spin systems in dispersive optical cavity-QED: quantum phase transitions and entanglement. Phys. Rev. A 77(4), 043810 (2008)
E.M. Kessler, G. Giedke, A. Imamoglu, S.F. Yelin, M.D. Lukin, J.I. Cirac, Dissipative phase transition in a central spin system. Phys. Rev. A 86(1), 012116 (2012)
C.-H. Chung, K. Le Hur, M. Vojta, P. Wölfle, Nonequilibrium transport at a dissipative quantum phase transition. Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 216803 (2009)
A.J. Leggett, S. Chakravarty, A.T. Dorsey, M.P.A. Fisher, A. Garg, W. Zwerger, Dynamics of the dissipative two-state system. Rev. Mod. Phys. 59, 1 (1987)
M.S. Rudner, L.S. Levitov, Phase transitions in dissipative quantum transport and mesoscopic nuclear spin pumping. Phys. Rev. B 82, 155418 (2010)
L. Borda, G. Zarand, D. Goldhaber-Gordon, Dissipative quantum phase transition in a quantum dot. arXiv:cond-mat/0602019 (2006)
J.I. Cirac, R. Blatt, P. Zoller, W.D. Phillips, Laser cooling of trapped ions in a standing wave. Phys. Rev. A 46(5), 2668 (1992)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
2.9 Appendix to Chap. 2
2.9 Appendix to Chap. 2
2.1.1 2.9.1 Microscopic Derivation of the Master Equation
In this Appendix we provide some details regarding the derivation of the master equations as stated in Eqs. (2.2) and (2.30). It comprises the effect of the HF dynamics in the memory kernel of Eq. (2.13) and the subsequent approximation of independent rates of variation.
In the following, we will show that it is self-consistent to neglect the effect of the HF dynamics \(\mathcal {L}_{1}\left( t\right) \) in the memory-kernel of Eq. (2.13) provided that the bath correlation time \(\tau _{c}\) is short compared to the Rabi flips produced by the HF dynamics. This needs to be addressed as cooperative effects potentially drive the system from a weakly coupled into a strongly coupled regime. First, we reiterate the Schwinger-Dyson identity in Eq. (2.14) as an infinite sum over time-ordered nested commutators
where for any operator X
More explicitly, up to second order Eq. (2.49) is equivalent to
Note that the time-dependence of \(\tilde{H}_{1}\left( \tau \right) \) is simply given by
where the effective Zeeman splitting \(\omega =\omega _{0}+g\left\langle A^{z}\right\rangle _{t}\) is time-dependent. Accordingly, we define \(\tilde{\mathcal {L}}_{1}\left( \tau \right) =\tilde{\mathcal {L}}_{+}\left( \tau \right) \,+\,\tilde{\mathcal {L}}_{-}\left( \tau \right) \,+\,\tilde{\mathcal {L}}_{\Delta \mathrm {OH}}\left( \tau \right) =e^{i\omega \tau }\mathcal {L}_{+}\,+\,e^{-i\omega \tau }\mathcal {L}_{-}\,+\,\mathcal {L}_{\Delta \mathrm {OH}},\) where \(\mathcal {L}_{x}\cdot =\left[ H_{x},\cdot \right] \) for \(x=\pm ,\Delta \mathrm {OH}\). In the next steps, we will explicitly evaluate the first two contributions to the memory kernel that go beyond \(n=0\) and then generalize our findings to any order n of the Schwinger-Dyson series.
2.1.1.1 First order correction
The first order contribution \(n=1\) in Eq. (2.13) is given by
Performing the integration in \(\tau _{1}\) leads to
where, for notational convenience, we introduced the operators \(X=\mathcal {L}_{T}\rho _{S}\left( t-\tau \right) \rho _{B}^{0}\) and \(\tilde{X}_{\tau }=e^{-iH_{0}\tau }\left[ H_{T},\rho _{S}\left( t-\tau \right) \rho _{B}^{0}\right] e^{iH_{0}\tau }\approx \left[ \tilde{H}_{T}\left( \tau \right) ,\rho _{S}\left( t\right) \rho _{B}^{0}\right] \). In accordance with previous approximations, we have replaced \(e^{-iH_{0}\tau }\rho _{S}\left( t-\tau \right) e^{iH_{0}\tau }\) by \(\rho _{S}\left( t\right) \) since any additional term besides \(H_{0}\) would be of higher order in perturbation theory [35, 36]. In particular, this disregards dissipative effects: In our case, this approximation is valid self-consistently provided that the tunneling rates are small compared to effective Zeeman splitting \(\omega \). The integrand decays on the leads-correlation timescale \(\tau _{c}\) which is typically much faster than the timescale set by the effective Zeeman splitting, \(\omega \tau _{c}\ll 1\). This separation of timescales allows for an expansion in the small parameter \(\omega \tau \), e.g. \(\frac{g}{\omega }\left( e^{i\omega \tau }-1\right) \approx ig\tau \). We see that the first order correction can be neglected if the the bath correlation time \(\tau _{c}\) is sufficiently short compared to the timescale of the HF dynamics, that is \(g\tau _{c}\ll 1\). The latter is bounded by the total hyperfine coupling constant \(A_{\mathrm {HF}}\) (since \(\left| \left| gA^{x}\right| \right| \le A_{\mathrm {HF}}\)) so that the requirement for disregarding the first order term reads \(A_{\mathrm {HF}}\tau _{c}\ll 1\).
2.1.1.2 Second order correction
The contribution of the second term \(n=2\) in the Schwinger-Dyson expansion can be decomposed into
The first term \(\Xi _{\mathrm {zz}}^{\left( 2\right) }\) contains contributions from \(H_{\Delta \mathrm {OH}}\) only
Similarly, \(\Xi _{\mathrm {ff}}^{\left( 2\right) }\) which comprises contributions from \(H_{\mathrm {ff}}\) only is found to be
Here, we have used the following simplification: The time-ordered products which include flip-flop terms only can be simplified to two possible sequences in which \(\mathcal {L}_{+}\) is followed by \(\mathcal {L}_{-}\) and vice versa. This holds since
Here, the first two terms drop out immediately since the electronic jump-operators \(S^{\pm }\) fulfill the relation \(S^{\pm }S^{\pm }=0\). In the problem at hand, also the last term gives zero because of particle number superselection rules: In Eq. (2.13) the time-ordered product of superoperators acts on \(X=\left[ H_{T},\rho _{S}\left( t-\tau \right) \rho _{B}^{0}\right] \). Thus, for the term \(H_{\pm }XH_{\pm }\) to be nonzero, coherences in Fock space would be required which are consistently neglected; compare Ref. [36]. This is equivalent to ignoring coherences between the system and the leads. Note that the same argument holds for any combination \(H_{\mu }XH_{\nu }\) with \(\mu ,\nu =\pm \).
Similar results can be obtained for \(\Xi _{\mathrm {fz}}^{\left( 2\right) }\) which comprises \(H_{\pm }\) as well as \(H_{\Delta \mathrm {OH}}\) in all possible orderings. Again, using that the integrand decays on a timescale \(\tau _{c}\) and expanding in the small parameter \(\omega \tau \) shows that the second order contribution scales as \({\sim }\left( g\tau _{c}\right) ^{2}\). Our findings for the first and second order correction suggest that the n-th order correction scales as \({\sim }\left( g\tau _{c}\right) ^{n}\). This will be proven in the following by induction.
2.1.1.3 n-th order correction
The scaling of the n-th term in the Dyson series is governed by the quantities of the form
where the index suggests the order in which \(H_{\pm }\) (giving an exponential factor) and \(H_{\Delta \mathrm {OH}}\) (resulting in a factor of 1) appear. Led by our findings for \(n=1,2\), we claim that the expansion of \(\xi _{+-\cdots }^{\left( n\right) }\left( \tau \right) \) for small \(\omega \tau \) scales as \(\xi _{+-\cdots }^{\left( n\right) }\left( \tau \right) \sim \left( g\tau \right) ^{n}\). Then, the \(\left( n+1\right) \)-th terms scale as
Since we have already verified this result for \(n=1,2\), the general result follows by induction. This completes the proof.
2.1.2 2.9.2 Adiabatic Elimination of the QD Electron
For a sufficiently small relative coupling strength \(\varepsilon \) the nuclear dynamics are slow compared to the electronic QD dynamics. This allows for an adiabatic elimination of the electronic degrees of freedom yielding an effective master equation for the nuclear spins of the QD.
Our analysis starts out from Eq. (2.35) which we write as
where
Note that the superoperator \(\mathcal {W}_{0}\) only acts on the electronic degrees of freedom. It describes an electron in an external magnetic field that experiences a decay as well as a pure dephasing mechanism. In zeroth order of the coupling parameter \(\varepsilon \) the electronic and nuclear dynamics of the QD are decoupled and SR effects cannot be expected. These are contained in the interaction term \(\mathcal {W}_{1}\).
Formally, the adiabatic elimination of the electronic degrees of freedom can be achieved as follows [61]. To zeroth order in \(\varepsilon \) the eigenvectors of \(\mathcal {W}_{0}\) with zero eigenvector \(\lambda _{0}=0\) are
where \(\rho _{SS}=\left| \downarrow \right\rangle \left\langle \downarrow \right| \) is the stationary solution for the electronic dynamics and \(\mu \) describes some arbitrary state of the nuclear system. The zero-order Liouville eigenstates corresponding to \(\lambda _{0}=0\) are coupled to the subspaces of “excited” nonzero (complex) eigenvalues \(\lambda _{k}\ne 0\) of \(\mathcal {W}_{0}\) by the action of \(\mathcal {W}_{1}\). Physically, this corresponds to a coupling between electronic and nuclear degrees of freedom. In the limit where the HF dynamics are slow compared to the electronic frequencies, i.e. the Zeeman splitting \(\omega _{0}\), the decay rate \(\gamma \) and the dephasing rate \(\Gamma \), the coupling between these blocks of eigenvalues and Liouville subspaces of \(\mathcal {W}_{0}\) is weak justifying a perturbative treatment. This motivates the definition of a projection operator P onto the subspace with zero eigenvalue \(\lambda _{0}=0\) of \(\mathcal {W}_{0}\) according to
where \(\mu =\mathsf {Tr_{el}}\left[ \rho \right] \) is a density operator for the nuclear spins, \(\mathsf {Tr_{el}}\dots \) denotes the trace over the electronic subspace and by definition \(\mathcal {W}_{0}\rho _{SS}=0\). The complement of P is \(Q=1-P\). By projecting the master equation on the P subspace and tracing over the electronic degrees of freedom we obtain an effective master equation for the nuclear spins in second order perturbation theory
Using \(\mathsf {Tr_{el}}\left[ S^{z}\rho _{SS}\right] =-1/2\), the first term is readily evaluated and yields the Knight shift seen by the nuclear spins
The derivation of the second term is more involved. It can be rewritten as
Here, we used the Laplace transform \(-\mathcal {W}_{0}^{-1}=\int _{0}^{\infty }d\tau \, e^{\mathcal {W}_{0}\tau }\) and the property \(e^{\mathcal {W}_{0}\tau }P=Pe^{\mathcal {W}_{0}\tau }=P\).
Let us first focus on the first term in Eq. (2.72). It contains terms of the form
This can be simplified using the following relations: Since \(\rho _{SS}=\left| \downarrow \right\rangle \left\langle \downarrow \right| \), we have \(S^{-}\rho _{SS}=0\) and \(\rho _{SS}S^{+}=0\). Moreover, \(\left| \uparrow \right\rangle \left\langle \downarrow \right| \) and \(\left| \downarrow \right\rangle \left\langle \uparrow \right| \) are eigenvectors of \(\mathcal {W}_{0}\) with eigenvalues \(-\left( i\omega _{0}+\alpha /2\right) \) and \(+\left( i\omega _{0}-\alpha /2\right) \), where \(\alpha =\gamma +\Gamma \), yielding
This leads to
Similarly, one finds
Analogously, one can show that terms containing two flip or two flop terms give zero. The same holds for mixed terms that comprise one flip-flop and one Overhauser term with \({\sim } A^{z}S^{z}\). The term consisting of two Overhauser contributions gives
However, this term exactly cancels with the second term from Eq. (2.72). Thus we are left with the contributions coming from Eqs. (2.79) and (2.80). Restoring the prefactors of \(-ig/2\), we obtain
Performing the integration and separating real from imaginary terms yields
where \(c_{r}=g^{2}/\left( 4\omega _{0}^{2}+\alpha ^{2}\right) \alpha \) and \(c_{i}=g^{2}/\left( 4\omega _{0}^{2}+\alpha ^{2}\right) \omega _{0}\). Combining Eq. (2.70) with Eq. (2.83) directly gives the effective master equation for the nuclear spins given in Eq. (2.3) in the main text.
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Schütz, M.J.A. (2017). Superradiance-like Electron Transport Through a Quantum Dot. In: Quantum Dots for Quantum Information Processing: Controlling and Exploiting the Quantum Dot Environment. Springer Theses. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48559-1_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48559-1_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-48558-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-48559-1
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)